Well this series of posts will literally do what they say on the tin.. I'm going to tell you exactly what I've been up to this week, it probably won't be in much reflective detail (unless I get carried away...hopefully not, I've got work to be doing!) but it will give all of you out there thinking of doing medicine a realistic idea of what clinical years are like. I have to say though fourth year is our easiest clinical year so maybe I will do the same next year when I am a final year just so you don't think its too easy ;)
Monday:
7.00: First alarm... *snooze*
7.10: *reset alarm for 7.30*
7.30: *Snooze*
7.40: *Manually snooze for another 5 minutes*
7.45: Finally sit up, and grab energy drink placed next to bed last night (I was finally being constructive late last night and stayed up till 3.30am as a result as I know me and if I didn't then the task I was doing would remain half done).
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| Lidl energy drink, dragging me through medical school since 2009 (the year I moved to a house ridiculously near my local lidl ;) |
8.05: Finally make it out of bed, grab some passable clinical clothes, quick wash and get ready.
8.15: Boil kettle! Yep, more caffeine.
8.17: Discover milk gone off, *swear*. Put cold water into coffee and drink it black *bleurgh*.
8.22: Running late! To the hospital!!
08.35: Arrive at eye hospital (currently on ophthalmology)
08.40: Get into scrubs - this mornings session is watching eye surgery.
0.9.00- 12.10
Watch 3 x Vitrectomys - these are operations to remove the vitreous humor (a gel between lens and the retina which should be clear) from the eye. These patients were having this operation because an "Epiretinal membrane" had formed on their macula and they needed to have the vitreous removed and then this membrane removed (membranectomy), there are other causes for this operation though such as retinal detachment.
I got to watch one of the operations through the "spare" microscope head, which made me feel totally badass and like I was on greys anatomy (even though a) It was eye surgery not neurosurgery and B) I wasn't doing anything just watching and making sure I didn't touch the surgical field!).
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| I'm totally this cool, honest... |
You get an unbelievable view down the microscope compared to the screen where I watched the other two operations, and you really get to appreciate how skilled and impressive the ophthalmologists are - they have to be able to make the tiniest movements ever, no room for those with shaky hands here!
We received quite a lot of teaching during the morning from both the consultant and the scrub nurse, a very welcoming team :).
An interesting morning but I have to say I do find eye surgery quite gross, though that's partly due to watching Final Destination 5 recently, regret seeing that before my ophthalmology rotation!!
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| The eye lasering scene from final destination.... the instrument holding her eye open is the same as is actually used, fortunately nothing else was the same as in the film!!
12.10- 13.45: A quick trip to lidl (milk!!) then lunch and a nice coffee with milk made from coffee I bought from the plantation near where I was on elective in Tanzania. Its is AMAZING coffee and normally properly wakes me up but today I was too tired for even that to combat the midday sleepiness. Grab another lidl energy drink to take to lectures in case I'm falling asleep.
14.00-15.30: Lecture on back of the eye pathologys, its ok and quite well taught but theres quite a lot to get through and it does drag a bit, energy drink was a good call!!
15.30- 16.15: We go down to the clinics to be taught fundoscopy and practice on each other. Unfortunately this was a bad clinical skill for her to choose to teach us as probably is one of the few skills we have got to practice quite a bit recently, so this wasn't amazingly helpful.
16.15-16.45: I still need most of my clinical skills signed off in my dreaded logbook and this is the last week of ophthalmology (we only have 3 weeks its not like I've been incredibly lazy!) so I manage to grab a nurse who had previously said that he would help us get these skills signed off. I practice on another student and her on me (she already had the skills signed off but he was a very good teacher so hopefully this was still useful for her!) and get a couple of them signed off but more importantly actually do learn quite a lot, he was brilliant.
17.00 - 17.35: Back home and writing this blog!! Have a committee meeting at 6pm which will probably be a couple of hours, and then I plan to come back home, tidy my room quickly (I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and be all tidy and organised...this is very unnatural for me! I was doing quite well at keeping my room tidy but then I was ill at the end of last week so fell a bit behind on everything, need to get it sorted now before it becomes a tip which will take hours to sort out again!) whilst pizza is in oven and then after dinner get some work done. Will see ;).
So that's my Monday :), tune in tomorrow for my Tuesday...
Halfadoc x
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