Rannoch or bust!

I am starting to develop a wanderlust to head for the hills, or at least up to the Highlands towards Rannoch moor area.


I really enjoyed my last visit to Rannoch, in 2004, with the blu one. Its something to do with peace, quiet, emptiness, space and away-from-it-all ness.

Run?

I am trying to decide whether to run the Fresh n' Lo half marathon in September this year. i have always fancied running a (half) marathon. Given I used to finish very near to last in cross-country at school, this would be some achievement. If I decide this week, I will have 10 weeks to train, as well as studying for resists, hopefully learning to drive, doing an elective and having a holiday.

If I do decide to do it, my next challenge is to choose a charity to run for.

RIP Fopp

It appears that Fopp is no more. According to the BBC, and more reliably, friends, the doors were shut today. Their store opposite work was always a great place to go during medium length breaks (30 minutes) at the weekend to browse the Cds and DVDs.

The staff didn't seem to mind if you didn't actual buy anything either. The picture used by some news organisations of the Fopp store above is actually the one opposite work which also has a random flower stall outside.

Yes there are other music stores, though with MusicZone shutting as well, there are fewer choices, and yes there are internet stores such as Play.com, or downloads, but nothing will quite be the same as Fopp - the random stuff they sold, the general ambience which reminded me too much of the film Tower records.

I've seeen a wee bit of the kind of future

The BBC has launched its' new toy. Basically it allows you to use their net server as a giant Sky+ box. You can view programmes for 7 days after they were on TV and soon will be able to view a whole series on your PC, as well as Radio and live TV.

My main interest in this is that my TV screen is smaller than my PC monitor and my video doesn't work properly, so I would benefit by a bigger clearer picture.

My only worry is that the iPlayer screen will only be the size of current BBC embeded TV, and that they might only do streaming not download.

Shrek the third

Tonight I went with DIME3 to see Shrek the 3rd at Fountainpark UGC, which since my last visit has morphed into a Cineworld. Thankfully none of the kids has morphed in the past two weeks. The blu one was back from her European wanderings and gave me a hug as well as telling me off for failing my exams. The kids really enjoyed the film, and so did the leaders funny how we all laugh at a U even when the rest of the cinema didn't find some bits funny!

I was really good and didn't buy a huge tub of salted popcorn (or even a small one).

Rach proved again to be the most punctual DIME TL at handing in her accounts for the last term. I'm not holding my breath to see who is last, but I bet he is Irish.

Taking opinions

Several people have been in contact with me this week about my resits. All of whom I have listened to. Some were difficult to ignore (my Dad does loud quite well on the phone), others would have been easier but there was this nagging feeling of knowing they were right. So I have now been told several 'home truths', which I knew but didn't think other people did.

1. Most of my friends don't want me to work in supermarket forever
2. Little Miss P, Butcher Boy and the people at work all tell me that my career comes first - even my work supervisor said that when i applied for 5 weeks LoA.
3. These exams are my one remaining chance.
4. I shouldn't just set out to be a Doctor, but to be the best Doctor that I can be (if not the best overall) was the clear message eminating from my friend in Shetland.
5. Throwing it all away for 'irrelevancies' would entail being 3 years behind in terms of employment prospects and £30,000 worse off with the same in student debt.
6. If I do give up work, the finances will work themselves out somehow
7. I have always wanted to be a Doctor, I shouldn't risk it for anything.

So I think the message from my various friends has been quite clear!

Another random video

Here is an express train appearing to do a loop the loop.
No idea if it is a theme park / rollercoaster or what....

The master plan

Well after a one week break since my SSM, mostly filled with busyness of one sort or another, tomorrow will be the start of 3rd year revision part II.

My plan is to do a summary of each PBL onto one/two sides of paper. (I know I have done it once, but this way it actually has to pass through my head. I think i will also make a major effort to integrate my clinical notes (such as they are), my Labs and my PBL stuff. Hopefully it will all work out.


So starting from tomorrow I have 20 days until my elective starts. taking off 2 days for 'day of rest' each week, leaves 18. This year we covered 33 PBL scenarios. I would therefore hope to actually be finished in nearer to 11/12 days and have time then to learn each one before starting my Elective.

I demand to be held to this plan by you my blog-readers!

Decisions, decisions

I have today submitted an application for 5 weeks Leave of Absence from work, which i hope will be approved tomorrow. If not then I plan to hand in my notice.


I will miss the people, and even the bizarre quirkes of the place - no hot water, domestic sized sinks, a blocked grease trap, randomly small bins, absences of dustpans, strange management techniques and inadequate staff training.

However on the plus side I will have time for studying!!! And can still spend some time each week with our crew of crazies.

Mystery absences

Ok, I have been MIA for about a week. Well not actually missing, since I knew where I was. I was working on the tech crew for an event in the City halls. Mainly working with the video kit which we were using for IMAG (Image MAGnification) i.e. showing the audience things that they may not be able to see, or which they can see but which we can make bigger using zoom etc. I also ended up involved in stage building and lighting as always happens at such events.The pic above is from the same show in 2006.

All in all a fun way to send 5 days, but tiring as i had work and work-related social events to attend with the usual mob - Stefan the german, dave the hat, the tattooed drinker, Sarah, Little Miss P, Butcher Boy and others.

Write title, wrong song

Following Rachel's comment about my choosing the wrong song before, I think that she is right. The lyrics I quoted are the ones from the Feeling Yes, Feeling No video link pages online I think, but I'm not sure if the Scottish Office (as was) changed it when they brought it too Scotland.

The only references I can find to the 'correct' song online are like this one.....

Whose is my body? Around 1979, there used to be a radio program for children about 6PM each weekday afternoon on New York Public Radio, WNYC: "Kids America". For a long time, the program featured a song, which began and ended with: "My body's my body, nobody's but mine.... You've got your own body, let me run mine." I forget most of the middle, but I think it included such lyrics as that my body was mine to do with as I pleased.... After a while, the program stopped playing the song. I was convinced that it was because the song not only urged children to ward off undesirable approaches by strangers (which everybody thinks is a good idea...), but it also encouraged children both: (1) to find pleasure in their bodies, and (2) to reject unwanted (but not "illegal" or "immoral"!) impingements and controls by their parents[fn.15[ Go to footnote! ]] -- both of which ideas are definitely not approved of by many "conservatives". I was never able to verify it, but I always suspected that "conservatives" pressured the station to remove the song. I believe the song was replaced by something that told children to report to their parents and teachers whenever any stranger tried to approach them in a suspicious way (etc.).

However....... some sources support my original song lyric choice:....

Recognising that it's not always easy for a child to determine whether an adult's behaviour towards them is right or wrong, the Canada Film Board produced ‘Feeling Yes, Feeling No'. Some Edinburgh primary schools near my home have made use of this children's training video, with its catchy theme song: My body's nobody's body but mine. You mind your own body; let me mind mine.

Meanwhile, one source gives the clue that the 'correct' version of the song was performed by "Sneakers".

For our motto, we could appropriate a little jingle by Sneakers, that friendly clown that I remember my elementary school teachers playing for us to teach us to identify people who wanted to do us harm:

My body's nobody's body but mine
You have your own body, let me have mine.

The plot deepens.....

Random Blogging

A big hello to the tattooed drinker, dave the hat stefan the german and sarah, we are all at tattooed drinker for a social and I am checking my email so they told me to post a blog.

A mixed up day

Well my week of interspersed good and bad news continued. This is post 100 on my blog (what do you mean you weren't counting?!?!!)

SSM Presentation
Today was the last day of my SSM (I know it's only Tuesday) and today was essay deadline and a presentation to do. In typical me style this year, I started wroiting my essay on the PC about 10pm last night. I had done some of the reading and a fair of thinking about the essay, but hadn't really decided which aspect of "Severe hearing impairment and its management" I was going to address.

SSM Essay
About 2am, it hit me like a flash - kaboom - and I wrote about the communication strategies which are available for deaf children. I won't bore you with all the details suffice to say that it was stuff that was new to me and hence made a hopefully good essay. I finished editing the essay and inserting references about 9am (and had had a 40mins sleep) and then started the presentation, which only took me about 45 minutes to write, since it was fairly basic text and I had most of the essay facts in my head.

SSM Result
We went in at 2pm and did our presentations, and handed the essay in, At the end of the presentations, the consultant had a few questions for us and then told us that we had passed the SSM!!!!!! The actual SSM grade does depend on what he thought of the essay and presentation though. And that was before he had even looked at our essays. He then asked us a few more questions about the best/worst aspects of the SSM, and what we would like more of if he runs it in the future, and then we were free!!!! Third year finished*

* except for the elective and resists

Wednesday's travels
In a very typical move, I forgot to return my Hospital Library books and so, tomorrow before I go to see the Head of Year 3 to discuss my exam performance and see where I went wrong, I hav eto go in the opposite direction to drop the library book off, thus I get no lie in!!! I also need to collect a letter from the Uni to my elective supervisor and then meet Little miss P for Hot Chocolate on her day off (she doesn't do coffee or tea!), then I am through to Edinburgh for the start of a 4 and a bit day extravaganza of techie stuff in Glasgow, interspersed with some work shifts and a party on Friday night.

So my blogging may be a wee bit haphazard until Monday.

But first i am off to celebrate Cott's being open til 1 through the festival by sampling the Addlestones with Butcher boy!

Results day

Well it is now official, for the second year running, I am a failure. Admittedly technically only 33% failure and even then only by a little bit. But even so, it means that both the last two summers I have done badly in the written exams despite passing the practical OSCE and doing quite well in the coursework.

It all seems a bit of an anticlimax, considering that:

• I was worried that this might happen after I ran out of time to finish paper 2.
• Most of my friends passed
• 3 of my friends became Dr's last Friday.
• I was looking forward to a holiday
• I still have to complete and essay and presentation
• The resists take place on the final 2 days of my elective (need to tell my supervisor that)

Still onwards and upwards etc.

I won somethign for once

As you might remember from a voyage round my life: Festival! Mardi Gras style. There was a competition.

My department won and earned ourselves £300. I won the individual prize and got £50. So as a department of 13 we have £350 which is £25 each!! I wonder if they will underpay me by 5 hours to make up for it????

More Scrubs

More Best of Scrubs clips again stolen....

The Scottish Executive, Incset, Songs and 10-year olds

Feeling yes, feeling no.
The Scottish Executive is proposing to change its' primary school sex education programme. The current one started off life in Canada in the mid 1980's and has a catchy/annoying song sung by many many many 20 somethings in Scotland (see below). There are no facebook groups demanding that the SE maintain the existing programme which focuses on sexual assault and incest by looking at areas where its ok for people to touch you, and areas where it's not ok.

Song: MY BODY Lyrics

It's my body and my body
Is nobody's business but my own
Listen to me people
'Cause I wanna let it be known
It's my body and my body's
Nobody's business but my own

I know what I'm doing
So why don't you leave me alone
It's my body and my body's
Nobody's business but my own

I'm a grown up woman
And I know who I am
So if you got a problem
Well I don't give a damn
Ain't no doubt about it
'Cause baby it's written in stone
It's my body and my body's
Nobody's business but my own

I've had it up to here
With all you holier-than-thous
Who want to save me from the devils wicked den
Quit shoutin' in my ear
With All your curses and your vows
I only wish I never had to hear
Your voices again

Don't quote me no commandments
Don't preach me no jive
There's only one commandment
Thou shall survive
You don't even know me

So why don't you leave me alone
It's my body and my body's
Nobody's business but my own
Maybe you don't like it
But baby it's written in stone
It's my body
Not your body
And my body
Is my business
My business
Is my business
And nobody's business
But my own

See http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/thelife/mybody.htm

This song seems to have affected an entire generation of Scottish kids, becoming that rare thing - a cult classic, loved by kids (because it's catchy and was taught before the age at which bodies became embarrassing), teachers, churches,, charities, health professionals etc.

The new Scottish Executive curriculum is far more controversial, with catholic churches choosing to opt out of teaching it.

See also:
http://www.nfb.ca/trouverunfilm/fichefilm.php?id=16703&v=h&lg=en&exp=
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0225707/
Sadly the video is not available on youtube or Bebo.

Proper Honda-ness

Isn't procrastination wonderful?

The original advert.

More stealing...

As you might remember from The colour of blue I said 4 people had asked me to steal scrubs, well at DIME last night I mentioned my summer plans to zizzy, who then asked me to steal a set for her too - that now makes 5 thieving females I know.

Are they adults or children?

At work at the moment, I hear there is chaos breaking out. No not because the pizza oven was broken, or because of the rat, or because we have no cheese for pizzas.

But basically two of our 17yo new starts are picking on (through their Bebo) on another member of staff who is "bisexual and curvy"> I as the old grumpy member of staff on the department told all 3 to behave themselves. I would provide links to the Bebo accounts, but those of you who also work in that place will know who I mean, and those who don't well it's best you don't get involved.

The member of staff being picked on now has her Boyfriend joining her side and slagging off the other two. I predict bloodshed, or worse still a massive decrease in work rate (this would actually be almost impossible, but anyway).

If I could, I;d bang their heads together, but one is too pretty & posh (friends with Robbie Coltrane's kids dotcha know*), one is a bit aggressive for that, and well you don't really want to bash the other one, it would be nasty.

*According to our van driver

Uni Fees

This week, the disparity between Scottish students and other UK students increased

As a student who was from england before I started Higher education, I am still treated as being english even 7 years later. This means I pay £1200 fees to my University each year. It also means that I get a means assessed loan, which is assessed by my LEA, though the loan is from the students loan Company. Also I am not eligible to claim back my travel costs from either my LEA or the university at which I study (approx £40 last year).

Were I to have been born north of the border and followed the same courses, I would have had to pay no fees for my first degree, but £2000 upon graduation. I would have been entitled to the same loan, assessed in the same way, but this time by SAAS a Government agency, with the loan again coming from the student Loan Company. I would have to pay fees for my second degree, but would be entitled to claim travel expenses from home to Uni (i.e. for a normal day on campus), plus all trips to hospitals, and 2 return trips to see my parents each term. And this week the Scottish executive removed the £2k graduate endowment, effective from this year!

If I were from another EU country, discriminating against me in this way would be illegal, but apparently it is ok to discriminate within an EU country between 'regions'! It is enough to drive me to a protest sit in somewhere. My MSP is not interested as they represent only Scottish issues. My MP says it is a devolved matter. The NUS, CHESS and BMA don't seem too worried about it either.

I know that my total debts even after 7 years will be easy to pay off once i graduate and am working 70-odd hours a week for the NHS and that in due course I will earn well above the Scottish average of £17k, but... at the moment it all seems ratehr unfair and penalising.

In an interesting turn of events, my LEA back home say I don't have too pay Fees in 2007-8, and have even increased my loan, so maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel after all.

Edinburgh Rugby

In exciting news, Edinburgh rugby have managed to sign Stephen Larkham the Aussie, as well as managing to hold onto Hugo Southwell. With this years Rugby World Cup in the autumn, the season and hence pre-season start early this year (ie now).

Having watched Edinburgh rugby matches for close to 4 years, since I was a 3rd year studying Biology, I am actually quite excited by their chances in the season ahead, assuming that their Scottish internatials don't get too injured, and that the Summer internationals, World Cup, Autumn Internationals and 6 nations don't prove too much.

Hopefully I might even get through to see a few games with the blu one again, but with her rugby team training on Friday nights, and me being in hospitals next year, that might be a bit hit and miss. The only match I got to see last year was the derby with Glasgow, at Hughenden last December on a bitterly cold Friday night. It was a good match, which Glasgow won (grrrrr) due to having less injured players.

It is quite worrying that so many of the Scotland internationals and Edinburgh players seem to be only a year or two older than me, and the majority of the Edinburgh team are younger than me. Kinda makes me worried when others are fulfilling their potential already.


I have to point out that despite supporting Edinburgh, I support England at the Calcutta cup. At other 6 nations matches, I am more ambiguous.

Being a follower.........

Following The little medic I've decided to do this as well

Two names you go by: David, zippa, Dr Dave, Dyb, Dave-2, wee-man, the thing in the middle,

Two things you are wearing right now: T-shirt, shorts, glasses. It's warm up here!

Two things you would want (or have) in a relationship: a 43" plasma..... oh... cuddles, fun

Two of your favourite things to do: spending time online....um not really, being with friends, DIME - though that may only be a favourite as it is a rare treat

Two things you want very badly at the moment: a holiday to some mountains; to learn to drive

Two pets you have had: hubumpkins, goldfish,

Two people I would like to do this: The legendary Mt T

Two things you did last night: Went to DIME, avoided singstar

Two things you ate today: toast, tunnocks caramel log

Two people you last talked to: Father Ted, Ticket Inspector on the train

Two things you are doing tomorrow: working 7-1, then essay writing

Two longest car rides: Home to Birmingham, Home to South Wales

Two favourite holidays: Australia in 1999, Loch rannoch in 2004

Two favourite beverages: Pepsi max, Apple & mango juice

Too much time on your hands? Watch this!

Home made honda video

This is truly wonderful. I can;t get the flash file to play in my blog so you will have to click it.

Child protection

Hmm I am today toying with issues of child protection and IT. At DIME some of the older kids wanted a thing where they can communicate with leaders online, kinda like Bebo.

Thats fine except:

1. Bebo is open to the world and their wife and thats not conducive to kids telling you things that they might tell you at the group on a Thursday
2. Most leaders who are on Bebo also have their friends on Bebo and that interaction may not be for the best
3. Child protection - we cannot eb seen to be communicating 1-1 with under 16's without some way of recording messages from both sides. Even in the 16-18 group it's tricky.

So I think I have a solution - its basic, and less graphically pleasing than bebo, but it allows messages, file uploads, discussion and such like, all recorded by the 3rd party supplier.

Now maybe I should do some Uni work.

Modelling

Today I made £30 doing topless modelling.

I even had 55 people put their hands round my neck...... ok, only 53 (but the other 2 dropped marks by not doing so).

I was an OSCE model for the Year 2 OSCE. there were 4 test centres, and I was allocated to the PFI hospital about 25 miles away. It was an early start - 0710 train getting there at 0810 for an 0830 start.

Because it is PFI it look like a cross between an office block and a hotel - lots of potted plants and white walls and glass and lots of cleaners! We even got free coffee and scones in the morning and a lunch on top of our travel expenses and £30 payments (all tax free).

In the morning I was the model for the respiratory exam and in the afternoon for Cardiovascular.

Sexism point 1.
The male volunteers do the respiratory and cardiovascular examinations, where you have to take your top off and the female ones do the GI (pull t-shirt up) and musculoskeletal (wear shorts) ones. And the heating wasn't on and it was a touch chilly after 2 hours sat topless on a bed.

Sexism point 2
Why do girls always have cold hands??????????????????????????????????????????????
All the girls today had cold hands, as did some of the guys........some were like ice!

Shrek the third

Excitingly (or not) the new Shrek film is due for release on 29 June. Which happens to be the end of the first week of my 3week holiday, which will be nice.

Although I can never actually manage to describe the actual Shrek storyline to anyone - "See there's this Ogre, and a donkey and well......" is about as far as I normally get - I'm sure no 3 will be a good film and I am looking forward to it as a holiday treat.

The film had its' London premiere last night at possibly the most expensive cinema ever. When we took TJF to London in 2003, we thought we might catch a film at the Leicester Square Odeon - but at £14 a ticket it was seriously overpriced for an Odeon.

Now some might accuse me of posting about this too early just to have an excuse to post pictures of Cameron Diaz more than once, but that would be inaccurate and unfair, I think.

BEBO & FISH

While dealing with a load of Bebo emails etc yesterday, and discovering that a lot of people from work are on Bebo - maybe we could get a PC with net access installed at work purely for Beboing........


Anyway I discovered this mad video on Butcher boy's profile (his Bebo iD is not butcher boy, in case any of you go looking for it.

See with all credit to the butcher boy, here is goldfish.

Random musings

After work last night, I went to enjoy the festival at Cottieres with a nice pint of Addlestones and then a Chinese with butcher boy, who did his angry dis-satisfied customer routine when
they messed up his order.

When they finally corrected it, I got my first food for about 15 hours. Yummy!

With the tattooed drinker away back to Ayr and his dog, and pay day over a week away, but everyone still broke, this could be a quiet week! I think I need one as I have a 3k word essay to write and a presentation to do for next Tuesday.

Festival! Mardi Gras style.

Yesterday was a long day at work. I started at 8am, it was a festival mood at work for the local festival day bin the street outside. I had spent half of Saturday morning making chicken kebabs on wooden skewers for the festival and had made some bad Caribbean music CDs for us to play all day. My dept supervisor and others had dressed the department in random fruit and balloons and stuff and all the staff were in bright vibrant colours, crazy shorts and silly sunglasses.


So anyway about lunchtime having cooked chickens and ribs, I was co-opted across to the BBQ team to cook and sell burgers, kebabs and ice cream on the street. It was a warm afternoon, though thankfully not bright sunshine. It was a great afternoon but very very busy, with 2 or 3 of us working flat out until about 6pm, when things quietened down.

Because the street was closed for the parade, it is also the only day of the year that you can drink on the street, and thus staff past, present, and those who had finished work, were sat outside on the pavement drinking.

By the time we cleared up and I left work, it was a 12hour and odd shift with no proper breaks! Still it was a fun and a great alternative to the normal.

Here's hoping that FTG win the £300 prize!

Dr Cox

The man known as the alchie of Ayr has asked to be renamed as The Tattooed drinker... he also has a Dr Cox fixation, so here goes:

Tea

I have been hanging round with Social Scientists (Butcher Boy) & Arts students (The alchie of Ayr) for too long. I am, now drinking Twinings Traditional afternoon tea. This will earn me a rebuke from butcher Boy, who maintains that the only tea one should drink all day is Twining everyday tea. To be fair, both are superior t the Tetley in the cupboard.

How did I become a tea snob?
How did I end up thinking about my tea in greater detail than bag water cup milk?????

I blame the butcher.

2 years on

In 2005, 250,000 people, on a warm July day in Edinburgh made their feeling known. [It would have been 250,001 but I had to work].



I also won tickets to the LIVE8 concert at Murrayfield, but had already arranged to take TJF to Blackpool, so Rugby girl and her brother went instead. It was my summer to miss out on the all the excitement!



In 2006, we reminded the G8 that they had made a promise to help beat poverty, starvation, AIDS, and other diseases. Unusually, the MPH campiagnw as not about fundraising, though funds were raised, it was like Band Aid and Live 8, all about people coming together from across the world behind an idea, thus giving the campaigners a mandate in the only language that politicians understand - votes.



The innovative Christian input - "Blowing the whistle on poverty".



By 2007, the story has moved to climate change.



Some people are still producing painful reminders of the world's inaction.

$600bn sounds a lot, but without a timescale, it is meaningless. Without dedicated funding it is meaningless Without them saying how much is new money, it is meaningless.

Lost............................................................

Tonight, after work, at 10pm, my phone and wallet ended up locked in the secure cabinet at the front desk, the keys to which are in a box which is in a bigger box, which is in a bigger box etc etc etc.

Thankfully I had my housekeys.

The alchie of Ayr and I were due to be going to curlers for apple juice. This looked unlikely since I had no cash. Then in a rare moment of work managers being nice, the Duty Manager lent me £20 so we could go to the pub.

I am back in work at 7am, so should be able to liberate phone and wallet, no doubt to find a few hundred messages.

I feel very lost without my phone and worry that people are trying to call me. Or that it will have switched from vibrate to ringing mode and that will have disturbed Butcher boy on nightshift and he will have smashed the store and phone into pieces.

Can I charge for advice?

Obviously as a student I am not yet an NHS employee.
Does this mean I can engage in private practice and charge for my opinion?
Without GMC registration, can I be held accountable for this advice?

Why you may ask....will in the past week, the number of health related questions I have been asked has increased, like 10-fold. And little Miss P from work has been on holiday.

It all started last weekend when the alchie of Ayr had a numb thumb, then at DIME last night, John H was asking me all about his pulled hamstring the other week where I gave advice by text. Then tonight at work, Racoline was asking about her cracked ribs (she has a past history of needing advice - trapped nerves, cracked ribs etc). Then PhilT81's blog is going on about one of his eyes changing colour, so it was back to the textbooks again to look that up.

Big Brother

I tend to ignore BB, and have only a very minor interest, and in exchange it normally happens without affecting my life.

Until now.

E4 schedulers have decided that "Big Brother Live" should start at 0015 each day running through until 6am. They appear to not have noticed what used to be in the 0015-0115 slot - Scrubs.

Now I am able to understand that they were having to repeat Scrubs, since there are only 6 series, but to replace nit with BB8 for the next 10, 11, 14, 18, or however many weeks is criminal.

My only hope is that BB flops and gets pulled.

Janitor

As a tribute to butcher boy, 3minutes of the Janitor.

Wedding Bells

Phew....just got a wedding invitation for this summer.

I thought it might be the first summer for 5 years when I did not have a friends wedding to go to. I was at one in January, but that was almost 2006!

In 2008 i have my sister's wedding to go to, for which i have responsibility for Fish transportation and fish tank sourcing...... details of which will become apparent when i get them from her and her Fiancee.

The colour of blue, reminds me of you.....

Ok, ok enough of the S-club 7 song lyrics!!

It would seem that a large proportion of my female friends have weird fantasies. Involving NHS property.

Ever since I started telling people that my summer elective would be in anaesthetics and i would be spending the summer in operating theatres, wearing scrubs (I must learn that it has a lower case S!), no fewer than 4 of my friends (all female) have asked me to steal them a set of scrubs to use a pyjamas.

When I pointed out that if you are so desperate, you can buy them online, they all said "No, they must have 'Hospital property' printed on them". The world is full of some strange people, but if all my friends start appearing wearing blue scrubs, you know my kleptomania got the better of me over the summer.

Personally I blame e4, JD and Elliot. But there must be a reason why guys don;t want to sleep in scrubs?

Media induced waiting lists

This nice BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6714955.stm ends with the paragraph:

If you suspect that you've a problem even though you're already wearing glasses, or even if you're given the all clear in a routine eye test, ask your GP to refer you to the orthoptics department of your local hospital where you can be properly assessed and given treatment if necessary.

Thus inundating GP's across the country with the need to refer hundreds of people, and read up on the condition. In turn, waiting lists for Hospital Orthoptics will increase, and thus another Government target is missed, and the Media get a second story!

Stolen Videos

I stole this from PhilT's bebo page.


Watch More Videos       Uploaded by TheEvilMrGoD.bebo.com

Elective (3)

I met with my Elective supervisor today. It starts in mid-July to mid-August, and has teh following aims & objectives.

• The elective will concentrate on peri-operative care of the patient
  
• It will focus on:
• physiological optimistaion;
  
• fluid balance,
  
• Analgesia
• Strategies to reduce morbidity in relation to surgery.

The idea is that in the first 2 weeks I will spend time visiting various areas of the Anaesthetic world, and can then focus down for 2 weeks on an area that interests me.

My Summer Uniform?

Surgery (2)

WOW!!!!!
It was a great day!

I loved my day in theatre. It was an early start to get there on time, but we arrived a wee bit early and watched te two cases prior to the one we were supposed to be seeing as part of the SSM. The surgeon, and thhe registrar were both very helpful and epxlained a lot about what they were doing, and even turned the microscope and TV on for the earlier cases which were adenoidectomy and grommet insertion and draining of glue ear.

Implant
We then got to watch the Cochlear implant, and it was great to see the things that everyone else viewed as normal, such as the care taken to make the incision as small as possible, and the neat and detailed drilling so that the implant would sit comfortably under the skin and slightly recessed into the skull. It was not like surgery is reputed o be and was in fact very gentle and the staff didn't seem arrogant at all - maybe ENT surgeons are different?

Wearing blue scrubs was in fact kind of cool, and got me some interesting looks when I went for lunch - all 8 minutes of it.

Scans and Anaesthesia
We were offered the opportunity, in the afternoon, to watch a child having an MRI & CT Scan as well as evoked Auditory Brainstem Responses (ABR) to assess their candidature for a Cochlear implant.

The little girl (M) needed to be anaesthetised for the scans, and it was amazing to see how she went from being happy (if deaf) 18 month old, to being a floppy mass of wires and tubes, with her life entirely in the anaesthetists hands. Because of the big paedatric hospital, little DGH like the one we were at don't do much paediatric anaesthesia, s there was an hour wait before M was sedated, allowing the registrar to pick my brain in a one hour tutorial on ENT, hearing impairment and my course. It turned out that he was friends with a Doctor who had done an MD and been Mr Tiddlywink's (a friend of mine) supervisor for his BMedSci project in my Honours Year.

The scans were successful in demonstrating that M had an intact auditory nerve. The EBR results were a mass of lines on a graph, and I couldn't even get a handle on them, but the Clinical scientists seemed happy that they had a result.

DIME
Of course me being me, a long uni day was not enough! I got the Bus to Train to Bus combination to be at DIME for 8pm, 110 miles away, since they were 2 Leaders short for DIME 3. Thus I got home 19 hours after I left!