The last thing we needed.....

It seems that someone from my year at Uni has posted somewhere on t'interweb that they have seen the 2010 finals paper.

This seems to have sent faculty chasing their own tail in circles with panic, and thus we have received an email saying that they will now be re-writing the exam paper to ensure no unfair advantage etc whilst saying that they think it unlikely that anyone has actually seen the paper.

Whether re writing means merely swapping the title page on the 'main' and 'resit' papers or long evenings of feverish activity in the admin end of the Med School as well as the library end is to be seen.

After all, all we need at 16 days to go was another minor panic!

Catching up a bit

After my SSM at DEPCAT hospital (see here) I wrote up the results of my project, and we submitted it to a scientific meeting. Due to my SSM being in Intensive Care stuff, this means that most of the other posters were written by senior registrars, researchers and consultants.

I was thus quite lucky to be one of the 50 chosen to be assessed in the poster competition at a conference in St Andrews yesterday. This did necessitate an early start, but was a really interesting day with some very interesting lectures on H1N1 and the medical responses to it, and then some research presentations from across Scotland - it was also a chance to catch up with staff I had met on SSM and elective over the past 2 years. This networking surely can't be a bad thing when I get to ST applications in 2012!

However back to earth with a bump, and sat revising in the (boiling hot) library of one of the hospitals, and wondering whether my tiredness despite 7 hours sleep is in anyway related to lack of vegetables and fruit in my diet at the moment.

Being in SL in the evening doing past papers and revision does tend to make you a snack food addict - subway, greggs, ready meals, coffee, tea, irn bru, crisps, chocolate ....and hospital food is not much better - the average sandwich contains a bit of lettuce!

The joys of online shopping

3 call centres, 25 minutes and 3 regional accents later I have discovered that my new vacuum (Samsung) is in East Kilbride at the depot as they could not deliver on Thursday as my road was closed. I thus have to go to EK one day this week between 9-5 or 9-12 on Saturday.

Call centres
1. Sainsburys direct - Belfast - amusing irishman and loud colleagues - I could hear the guy next to him talking to a woman ordering a washing machine for SK11 postcode
2. HDNL - Liverpool - very friendly girl, who because their computers were slow, had a 10 minute chat in broad Scouse with me about life and the world and what had I done for new year. her name was Emma.
3. HDNL - East Kilbride - blooming heck, tech them about customer service, the guy belched whilst on the phone.

Resolved to make a resolution?

Psychologists at the University of Hertfordshire say it is quite normal for nine out ten of us to give up giving up/cutting down/working out in the first few days of January. Those who do keep on keeping on never make it past 77 days anyway, according to the insurer PruHealth (‘Death of the Diet Day’ is March 18, if you’re looking to pencil dinner dates in to your new dairy). But those who don’t bother at all end up healthier, mentally, as they avoid feelings of failure and worthlessness, according to the charity Mind.

Source

Hmmm 5 weeks of work and 4 weeks of exams takes me to just shy of the new years resolution deadline which does imply that any resolutions related to studying may outlast the exam season!

5 star hotels

This next few months will yet again see me visiting some fancy hotels - working, Uni Graduation, Uni Conference, Mum's Birthday, Weddings and such like.
This is the location of the conference in January and it looke very nice, but I worry that it will eb cold and dark when I arrive and likewise when I leave and for all I see of the facilities, woe could have helf it in the old Ruchill hospital.

This is allegedly the location of the 2010 Grad Ball. Looks rather nice and I hope we get fireworks like that, but I fear that they may cost more than the ball will. We were discussing the other day the issue of having to pay now for a Graduation Ball when we an unsure of passing let alone Graduating in July!

End of the year!

Hmm we appear to have arrived at the last day of 2009 all of a sudden. I must complain, no-one told me this would happen. Only yesterday term was finishing for Christmas (ok so technically it was 18th December), but this leaves me now with a major issue of trying to complete all the tasks I promised / am obliged to complete by the end of the year.

The main task are registering for a conference in January and completing the text for a poster for said Conference so we can send the poster to the printers and get it printed in time. I have technically been onto this since June but not really done much about it.

Subsiduary tasks include going to the bank and tidying my flat. Then comes the big decision of the day - Edinburgh, Study Landscape or my flat for new year?

The end of the year is also the Queen's New Years Honours list. For the first time in a wee while, I don;t know anyone on the list, though in second year I was a research subject for a trial for which one of the lead authors got a gong! In previous years, Uni lecturers, Scout Leaders, ex-colleagues, Charity people and even people at Mum & Dad's church have received a gong of one level or another.

It does make me wonder how many of the class of 2010 will be OBE / MBE / Sir / Lord before retirement.

My flat on tv

Story of a christmas in pictures

Sleep

Hmmm couldn't get to sleep last night

Possibilities include
a) not burned sufficient calories / done enough exercise. Unsure how this works, but trying to get to sleep after lazy days is harder.
b) finals fear - not feeling particularly fearful as yet, but it is building.

So at 5.30 I gave up trying to sleep and have a large cup of 'Taylors of Harrogate Lazy Sunday' coffee at a fairly strong level and am contemplating my day.

Either way, I should sleep very well tonight ahead of my trip down to Newcastle on Thursday complete with Thermos flask and camera for the snowdrifts, tailbacks,m jacknived lorries and 'christmas roadtrip' film scenes from airplane, home alone etc.

WINTER 2009

Random recent pictures

Does this count towards the 5 a day?

The almost finished conversion of the old GPO in George Square.

Again, ground-breaking science being published. This is real science, this is what people need to know - in a bottling will a full or empty beer bottle break easiest?

Chaos

This block has started strangely. There are a 2 cohorts doing Paeds at the same time. This translates as 45 of us in one hospital (of 12 wards) and thus cases are under extreme pressure at the moment, with about 5 med students on each ward looking for suitable cases. Hopefully this will calm down over the next few days else it will be near impossible. The teaching programme however seems more robust and has a fair ammount of tutorials, teaching ssessions and clinics, as well as soem free time. This makes it much ncier than most hospitals.

Recycling, it just goes round and round

I noticed as we got home yesterday lots of people had brown wheelie bins out, so when playing the car shuffle this morning so Mum & Dad could go out, I pointed to Mum that theirs wasn't out. Mum said it was the Garden Rubbish for recycling. It seems the council collect people's garden rubbish and convert it into compost for the council to use on flower beds and parks etc.

One of the houses with such a bin had a car outside out of which people were unloading compost from B&Q.

The irony and additional cost of this struck me - if people had their own compost heap, then they would save money, the council would save money, and they would be taking a pro-active approach to recycling...this may not work in flats etc, but in deepest suburbia with decent sized gardens then it should be obligated!

End of block

Another block over, 9 down, 3 to go, revision now cranks up another gear, hence I am sat in my old room at Mum & dad's writing revision cards about dementia at 9.20am on a Saturday, and wondering why I don't remember some of this stuff from the actually teaching blocks.

Today's revision topics are all psych related which fits well with some of the GP stuff I saw - depression, distress, anxiety, psychosis, dementia and addictions. In fact that probably made up about 1/3 of consultations, especially anxiety disorders.

It is strange being back in my old room - It hasn't been painted since I was last here for any length of time, in 2004, and thus looks pretty much the same, including my high school desk, but the bed has been changed - sister getting married required a double bed in the guest room - and the bookcase us now covered in Mum & Dad's books not mine. On the other hand, being at the coast means it is much much windier than Glasgow ever is - mind that could be an east coast thing, as Edinburgh was always very windy........ Either way, it is now very windy today and rain is crashing off the windows - and 2 couples I know are getting married near here today - hope it dies down a bit.

On the way down last night, it was raining rather heavily - after Mum house sitting all week to wait for the dishwasher people - see another post for more info on that - Mum and I met Dad at Longtown for a meal in a rather surprisingly nice cafe/restaurant then drove back along ' the military road' from Greenhead to heddon - the road is as the name suggests right next to hadrian's Wall, and follows the roman route on the south of the wall for most of the way. It is pretty straight and thus quite hilly, which adds to the fun of driving a small Ka with 3 adults and luggage on board.

Island life

My time on the island at Gp is finished and I am back to stable internet connections, and coffee shops! the island community was relatively small, so blogging was always going to be tricky as by their nature some thinsg i saw would be very identifiable, and recent media coverage has been banging home the message about confidentiality and anonymity for patiients in blog / facebook etc posts.

The intersting things included:

• surgical emphysema and pneumothorax in someone who fell at night
• managing to palpate a breast lump
• student led surgeries
• phlebotomy
• friday night in A&E
• the various skills fo the GPs - extracurricular
• the ward rounds and community hospital next door
  
• childhood injections

The next block is child health, and is the start of a run of 3 blocks back here in the city. This is very strange as I had 1 block in the city in the whole of 4th year. Without a 30 minute commute, how does one prepare for the day?

New year, new ways to avoid revision

Well it is here, 8 days into final year at Med school, only 150 something to finals. One Five Oh...................as in 5 months.............as in argh!

Anyway Block 9, at least I think it is 9, or maybe Year 5 block 1 - yes that is easier, is GP. GP blocks have a reputation for being very boring, very quiet and drinking lots fo tea, much like Psych but with less depressed people. My block is turning out to be anything but...I am on an island for starters, which means no ferries after about 7pm until 7am. This means no ambulances to big A&E and city hospitals. Thus the helicopter (more later)!

This also means that there is no GEMS/Deputising service for Out Of Hours - so the duty GP covers GP emergency, A&E, Minor Surgery, OOH cover and Maternity, as well as Police Surgeon duties. All these have my phone number so I am wondering how many 1am phone calls there will be......

The practice is the only one on the island and covers about 7000 people, 25% are elderly, 14% are kids, and almost 50% appear to have a long term chronic disease of one type or another. So all in all life is not exactly super-quiet here, except after work..... the rush hour is very proportional and seems to focus around ferry arrival and school start / finish times. After about 7pm, the town gets very quiet and up where I am staying, I can hear cars passing on the road about 100 yards away. I can even hear the cows in the adjacent field, though I have not yet noticed the deer which apparently roam the field behind my accommodation.

The practice staff are all friendly, the nurses and receptionists slightly more so than some of the medical staff, who due to their work patterns haven't really seen me much - the on call person ahs the enxt day off, so I only saw my supervisor one day last week - hoping to catch up with her tomorrow to arrange some Phleb sessions with the reception staff on 'study' mornings or where my timetabled stuff doesnt start until 10 or 11.

Considering staying over here for part of a weekend to see how busy A&E is. But looking at diary, doctor on duty rota etc, the only possibilities seem to be staying this Friday night, or coming back on Sunday afternoon this week.

Anyway this week is a right mess. I am back at Depcat hospital to present my SSM research stuff on Wednesday so I need to (gale force winds permitting) head back to the city tomorrow, then meet registrar (who has moved to anotehr hospital) on Wednesday morning, then onto depcat to present the findings, meet Mum and Dad for a carvery meal, then back to the Island on Thursday (5.45am start) til Friday night or Saturday morning.

Shouting Lager, Lager, Lager, Lager, Lager, Lager

Tennent's accounts for 55% of lager sold to Scottish pubs and clubs and around 30% sold to off-licences and supermarkets.

Source

This made me wonder.... is price what drives drinking habits. Are half of the people drinking Tennent's in pubs just doing so because it is cheap, and spending 'more' for higher quality lager's to drink at home?

Holiday pics.

It's a long while since I last travelled first class. And this time I
am doing it for less than the cost if a normal ticket. Twenty minutes
into the journey and I havd coffee juice and a croissant and a man is
collecting the breakfast orders! I know it is all very boringly
normal if you travel first class and stay kn nice hotels all the time
but fir me as a holiday it's a nice change from nescafe on a ward round