First week

Well, the first week of placement went well...eventually. On Monday, it was kind of a "what the hell am I supposed to do" event whereas the rest of the week was enjoyable.

Monday, as I said, just spent the day wandering around the hospital and having talks on all sorts of things, really started to worry about what we are supposed to be doing!

Tuesday, things got better, went to a drug rep free lunch and got lots of post-its and pens. Our consultant had a go at the Pfizer rep for saying that Lipitor (Atorvastatin) is clinically significant at 3 months but statistically significant at 6 months, which he says is impossible.

Then had a free afternoon so booked ourselves into A&E for the afternoon, which must have been the most quiet A&E ever! Only about 15 patients in 5 hours, though the nurses did tell us off for saying it was quiet; they didn't want us cursing their ED. Some really nice people in this hospital, which make a change from the "oh no, not medical students.." attitude that i've come accross many times before in the bigger hospitals.

Weds, thing we observed lots of procedures here, which was a good experience. At one point the consultant shouted at me "quick, get some gloves on and help!" which felt cool. The other member of my group was holding the patient to the bed which I was making sure the wires weren't ripped out of the gastroscope!

Thurs, went to GPs, who modify their surgery to have double length appointments while we are in clinic with them. Saw some interesting cases again, including a young girl who wanted contraception (Gillick competence issues, her mother wasn't there), a woman who thought she was going through the menopause, to which I had no clue what to ask, a man with musculoskeletal/?cardiac chest pain and a young woman my age with otitis externa. A good day our GPs are friendly and really good doctors.

Friday, our Academic half day, not much, but did some more BLS training and learned how to resuscitate an intubated patient and how to use a bag and valve mask instead of mouth to mouth.

So a good week. Have a few days off next week so should be able to get into A&E, theatre, Radiology, etc and have some more fun!!!