A&E in the UK
This is a 3 part documentary on the effect of young adults on the NHS. The first part was on last week and was excellent. The second, regarding teenage pregnancy, is on tonight at 9. Recommended watching for all those thinking of working in the NHS.
Will chip in my views about it all after I’ve seen all 3.
It’s not unusual - I go home or manage to meet up with my family. I’ll usually be presented with a “present” in the form of a cut or bruise from my brother or sister. More recently I’ve had the joy of a rash. These are generally trivial and more of a joke than any serious test of what I’ve learned.
Move up a few generations and things are a bit different. Here I have statins, B-blockers and ACE inhibitors of all sizes. I get updated on any recent changes (whether I want to know or not) and spend a bit of time trying to work out what the trade name actually is. This is fine, I’m (sadly) quite interested in this. I stop myself from making any real comments though - save maybe trying to explain what the drug does. Anything beyond that 1) I tend not to know and 2) don’t want to treat my family anyway.
Unfortunately my restraint doesn’t seem to be shared by my peers. The most recent example of this was one of my colleagues explaining to a relative the findings of a new study. The relative was told they “probably don’t need to be on it” and that it “has these new problems”. More annoyingly, my friend was planning to send the article so that it could be taken to their relatives GP who “might not have seen it”.
I have no doubt that evidence based medicine isn’t practiced as well as it possible could be but this concerns me for different reasons. Firstly, treating family members is not exactly recommended, even by those fully qualified. More than that, however, is the poor GP who is going to be presented with a BMJ article that the patient was told to bring.
It’s confusing for the patient and annoying for the GP. I don’t like it.
This isn’t an isolated incident either. I’ve heard of younger students advising about post-stroke medication for example.
Perhaps we should be taught about where our limits should be as students? I can think of a few sessions that this could fit into.
I recently upgraded my 02 contract to include unlimited internet browsing. While I wait to get a phone that can actually deal with this excellent bolt on I’m currently getting as much as I can out of it on my nokia 6500 classic.
Despite the problems with the phone it is quite capable of running a number of applications, including the Gmail mobile app. I downloaded it and for some strange reason the phone decides it belongs in the Games folder. Going to Menu -> Apps -> Options allows you to create a new folder (mine is “Web Apps”) and you can move the Gmail App in here (by going to Options when it’s selected from the Games folder).
After opening Gmail and logging in you’ll notice that it has a generally annoying habit of asking for network access time and time again (bascially whenever you want to do something). Thankfully there is a way around this. In the folder with the Gmail app selected, go again to the Options menu. Select Application access -> Communications -> Network access. This allows you to change how the program gains network access. For Gmail I’ve changed mine to Ask first time only which thankfully saves any of this trouble.
Other apps I’ve found so far which are worth downloading include Opera Mini and TinyTwitter. The above can also be applied to these and, especially for TinyTwitter, it helps a lot. I tried to get hold of jTwitter but kept getting 404s. Anyone able to help me here?
This is a cross-post from an applicants forum about university halls. Putting it here for easy finding in future. May also be helpful…
A bit of background first - I lived in Unite halls in year 1 due to the glasgow priorities. Try and read about this to see where you’ll be placed. They seem open to a bit of persuasion so do write letters etc if it’ll be an issue. After year 1 I moved out to private landlords. My view of the halls is therefore limited, but you’re getting it all anyway.
Murano
This is the student halls of glasgow. It’s the size of a small village and takes the majority of 1st year students. It is the place to go if you’re looking for a true student experience. One of the few places in the west end where someone will always be awake and walking around. People both love and hate murano. It’s easy to meet people with everyone being in the same situation.
Practically, murano is about 20 minutes walk from the Uni. It consists of either 5 or 12 students per flat. Trust me when I say that murano is the ultimate stereotype of a student flat. Showers/toilets are shared and usually deteriorate quickly. Some cleaning service is provided but it’s not great. The bedrooms are generally a bit better (all single beds) and it’s really up to you how the room looks.
Murano is great for 1st year where you want to meet people and have the time to spend outside of Uni work. Best suited for the sociable who isn’t too fussed about a bit of mess.
Queen Margaret
Not been here much and only in 1st year so my experience is limited. It’s also about 20 minutes to Uni although in a slightly nicer area of the west end.
Queen Margaret’s rooms are all en suite so great for those who’re a bit worried about the mess. The bumps the cost up though unfortunately.
Sociable it’s not a bad place to be. You’re very close to Winton Drive and there will always be people to meet here.
Cairncross
Completely opposite side of the Uni from the above. About 15 minutes walk from Uni. We’re back to shared showers/toilets here and in some cases there are shared bedrooms. Always seemed a bit cleaner than murano though.
A lot of people will compare murano to a prison. Personally I see cairncross as a better prison model. There is one corridor that never seems to end with all rooms coming off it. I also remember being told to quieten down reasonably early in the evening.
Heard mixed view about cairncross. The rooms are a reasonable quality and it’s closer to town but you generally mix with those who you share a kitchen with.
Wolfson Halls
The only catered halls of the Uni. It’s much to far away to be any use at all (2 buses apparently). My advice would be to buy a cookbook instead. Near the larger sports complex though which might interest someone. Full of vets.
Unite
Unite is a private company specialising in student halls. They have a few properties throughout glasgow. Until about last week they had a property called Cooperage Place over near Yorkhill (close to cairncross) but this has been sold to the Uni. Nothing about it on the Uni pages at the moment so god only knows what’s happening. Cooperage can probably be compared to Queen Margaret. There are some double rooms though.
Gibson street, for those who’re asking, is still being built at the moment. It’s certainly come on quite well recently and looks almost finished. Unite as landlords are as a business would be - charging for lots. In return though Gibson St would put you about 5 minutes from the Uni (at a price!). They also let any students in (not just 1st years, like above) so you’re ability to mix is limited slightly.
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Generally I’d suggest you visit somewhere before going forward for it.
I’m a self confessed observer of all things related to admission to medical school, particularly Glasgow. I don’t really know why, it just interests me. I’ve tried twice to get involved on the admissions committee but so far no luck. This year I’m giving around a 15 minute talk to those who are considering Glasgow at the Applicant’s day at the end of the month.
The application process is quite a roller coaster for those on it. A very drawn out process that spans across 6 months of the year. Just last week it seems the bulk of this years Glasgow applicants has been given offers. Congrats to them!
However this year was rather different from last. A good deal of offers had already been given out - to those who hadn’t been interviewed.
This might not seem like a big change but personally I see it as quite significant.
As a bit of background, interview has long been the pass or fail criteria for Glasgow applicants. The introduction of the UKCAT seems to have changed this a bit. There is a progressive reliance on the UKCAT to rank candidates. I, thank goodness, didn’t have to take the UKCAT but those who have generally don’t appreciate the experience.
Whether or not the UKCAT is a good tool for applicants is beyond me. However I do believe that simply the best way to get the feel for an applicant is to speak to them. Isn’t this what they try and teach us all about in communication skills? It seems confusing that they are now dropping this as a prerequisite for an offer.
Beyond that I remember quite a bit of mockery from the Glasgow faculty regarding Edinburgh’s refusal to interview any school leavers (grads were a bit different). A bit of hypocrisy now, no?
I’ve yet to ask about the reasoning behind this. Maybe a good reason exists. The rumour that the current chair of admissions is retiring seems a little more solid. Is the chair-to-be not so keen on interviews?
I don’t know what kind of impact this will have on the ability of students. I mean this in no offence to those coming to us in September but I do look forward to seeing whether there are a bit different in a subtle sort of way. Will anyone be interviewed next yet? I hope so but it’s any one’s guess what will change next.
I’ve been having a problem recently with my phone - a nokia 6500 classic. Bascially, when I bought the phone I quickly found out that the memory capacity is rather large. I quite enjoyed not having to empty my inbox out very often.
A good while later I have over 5000 text messages on my phone. This has really noticable complications, mainly trying to write a message when starting the phone. It took over 10 minutes for the messaging system to ready itself from a fresh switch on, which is quite annoying after a while!
When I tried to delete these messages using the Menu -> Messaging -> Delete Messages option my phone would do something rather weird and even more annoying. After a variable number of messages, usually around 30-40, it would freeze. Deleteing would not continue. If you cancel the deleting at this point the majority of the phone is fine however trying to access any messaging features doesn’t work.
Today I managed to find a solution. Instead of using the more obvious way of deleting messages I did this:
Menu -> Messaging -> Inbox -> Options -> Mark All. This returns to the inbox with a checkmark down the whole list. Now I go for Options -> Delete marked.
It did its usual on the first attempt although it stopped after about 130 messages. Plus, it returns to the inbox when if you cancel it at this point and doesn’t lock out messaging features. I tried again and within about 2 or 3 repeats I had completely cleared the inbox. The same process on the sent items box cleaned my whole phone of messages. It’s now much speedier to load.
I imagine someone will probabaly experience a similar problem (found someone with the slide version via google) so I hope this post will save a bit of stress.
Thankfully this week is the week we changed hospitals for both PBL and clinical practice. My new hospital is considerably closer to my flat and doesn’t cost me a penny to travel to. So far so good, until day 1.
We turn in at 9am to the corridor between two wards. Slowly but surely our numbers swell as we approach 24 students with all our bags and jackets cluttering the reasonably busy corridor. Despite the frequency of people passing us, relatively few give us more than a slight look. After around 10-15 minutes we’re asked who were here to see. The problem? It’s day one and we have no idea.
It’s soon worked out that our consultant is downstairs. Our enquirer mentions he’ll go find out what’s going on. The consultant appears.
“Hello, my name is such-and-such*. I’m who you’re here to see. Just finishing a ward round I should be about 10-15 minutes.”
Off he goes, we’re relatively reassured that someone does care about us to some degree.
15 minutes pass, we wait.
30 minutes pass, we wait…restlessly.
45 minutes pass, by which point a good few more people are wondering why we’re still here.
Finally, our consultant returns. Only an hour of standing in a corridor. Great start.
The next bit is generally more promissing. He takes us around the majority of the hospital showing us wards of interest. For some rather unknown reason he decides to lift my name badge and take a peak at my name. Do I feel threatened or mearly smile it off?
As we cover the important areas and return to pick up our belongings I feel rather mixed about the morning. The orientation was useful but was there really a need to make us stand and wait? Oh well, PBL in the afternoon…
I struggle to find the PBL room but eventually get pointed in the correct direction. Guess the orientation wasn’t too useful after all? Again we gradually increase in size until all seats in the room are filled. Still we’re waiting for our facilitator. 15 minutes tick by. After around 20 minutes we agree that half past is sufficiently long to be waiting. What felt like 29 minutes past arrived and a secretary peaks her head in,
“No-one here to take you yet? Who is it meant to be?’
We mutter some names. It is our first day after all.
“Ok, I’ll go see what I can find out”. Great, now we have to wait.
The allocated facilitator is never found. Our morning consultant arrives, less than pleased, and takes the rather brisk session.
Closer to home I might be but it seems the time spent travelling will now be time waiting.
* - Not their real name…
Snow - From my window
This was the view from my window today. Whilst it wasn’t particularly bad up here England seems fairly paralysed by the snow.
However, I only had 1 class on today. The problem is this happened to be PBL at the hospital, a 30 minute train trip away. That is, of course, after I get to the station which requires a 15 minute walk.
I have no real problem walking in snow and I knew the train was running so I was pleased to turn up to PBL on time. Out of the 12 of us in the group, 6 started at 9am this week and were all waiting. From the remaining 6 only 1 other was already there. We began the process, full in the knowledge that the remaining 4 almost never turned up on time (a different post!). Expecting to see them stumble in around half past I was astonished to finish (after only an hour, heh) without them either turning up or letting us know.
Who cares?
Pretty much nobody. They’ll have to explain their absence - assuming it even gets logged - but then what? If we had waited for them, we’d be giving up our time to ensure they get some benefits. If they had turned up we’d be expected to update them on what had been said - we’d still be losing time.
I’m not going to admit I attend everything perfectly but if snow is the excuse, and it probably will be, I’d be pretty annoyed. They all get transport and my 45 minute trip would probably take them closer to 20 - for free too - it just makes my effort seem pointless.
I’ve got 2 of them tomorrow for GP, will they show?
Will it snow?
We’ll see.
Since returning to Uni after the holidays we’ve been concentrating so far on haematology - the study of blood related issues. Particularly interesting were the clinical sessions on the ward. Haematology is a tricky speciality where the majority of the really common pathologies - things like anaemia - are handled in an outpatient setting. This makes it pretty difficult for us to see them and get to grips with their care.
Inpatients for haematology usually involve some sort of malignancy and it’s these patients that we’ve been concentrating on recently. Due to the set up of our sessions we have different tutors on each session with very minimal communication between tutors. This meant that we ended up bugging a poor patient twice and yet it continues to amaze me how reasonable patients are when 6 students turn up at their bedside to awkwardly look at them and ask questions. I’d certainly be fed up with it all, even without a cancer raging through my body.
The patient then presented to his GP with increasingly severe headaches. This went on for a while without much relief. A sweeling was eventually present around and behind the ear. Originally believed to be an abcess in the brain it was only when a biopsy was taken that it became clear a lymphoma was the cause. Appropriate treatment has therefore been started and when we visited him for the second time it was clear at least a small reduction in swelling had taken place.
Unfortunately it doesn’t look good. The tumor has spread through the skull bones and a mass is present in the brain. It is possible that treatment may be curative but it’ll be a long haul with multiple rounds of chemo. Fortunately he has relatively few symptoms at the moment. However for a middle aged man to be spending considerable time in hospital is understandably frustrating. I plan to keep track with his progress and see if there is any change.
A much wider reaching topic is the benefit of having good consultant teaching. This only happened on one of our sessions and the contrast is striking. Hopefully it’ll continue for the rest of the year but I don’t really think that’s likely.
I end the week as I started - with yet more blood. This time I’m actually taking it. Whilst it seems like such a simple and generally enjoyable job it suffers under the problems common in the NHS. I work no more and usually less than 8 hours a week. Today I spend a further 3 trying to be told how to do something we never even do. Worse than that, doing so in front of my immediate boss would lead to very disapproving words. It’s a growing circle of red tape. Tomorrow I look forward to a personal interview about some development plan to decide how I will enhance my skills. After how ever long that takes we’ll then still have to get the bloods done by 10:30. It’s no wonder people are fed up - we can’t even do the job we’re there to do. Sigh.
I think we can all agree that it was a pretty average keynote? Certainly not one MacRumors will want to remember - I realised just how good their feed is when I had to go try and find something to replace it.
iPhoto looks great. I was using it earlier today and many of those new features would greatly improve how my library is managed. As for iMove and Garageband I can only really say “meh”.
iWork offers some needed improvements - EndNote integration in Pages is awesome and I’ll be looking into properly using it in the future.
My real surprise was in the Box Set which was almost aimed straight at me and offers quite a price reduction compared to the individual packages. I can’t exactly afford it right now but I’ll probably consider it in the next few months. My only concern is Snow Leopard may be out by that time, pushing the price higher or replacing it altogether.
I have a feeling everyone has a bit of a misconception about DRM free music. I understood it that it will be offered on iTunes Plus along side regular iTunes - no doubt at a hiked price. Certainly a step in the right direction though.
The lack of hardware upgrades, particularly for the Mini, is interesting. The next regular big Apple event would be the WWDC in June. Could we perhaps be seeing something between now and then that will give us something to get interested in? I hope so, but probably not.
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