Welcome to Africa

25th aug - arrive in Tanzania .I m so excited to finally be here! Feels like I have been planning and waiting for my Elective for months and its the bit of my course I have been looking forward to since literally the start of med school (+ maybe even before that!). As a result I spent most the Journey here bouncing about like a kid on Smarties!

Still got a 14hour bus journey to go (at time of writting but maybe not posting due to lack of wifi currently) before we reach the mission hospital we are working in, but the bus leaves early in the morning so we should be there by tomorrow evening :D.

So far most people seem to speak English very well which means hopefully we should be able to Communicate with patients quite easily but as this is the capital it may be a false representation of eNglish abilities in general so we are trying to learn key Swahili phrases just in case . Currently I can say thank you ...Its a start ;).

Apolagies for Numerous typos in this + subsequent posts - can only blog at moment from a PDA and the transcriber function dislikes my stereotypical doctors handwritting! Will also add pictures to posts at a later date :)

Gap Summer!

I'm currently posting from a pay-per-a-minute internet cafe in Cambodia so apolagies if this post is even less coherant than normal!

Well I got through my intercalated finals, worked my last shifts at the S.U bar, packed up my halls and headed home briefly before heading off on my very own gap summer. Part of my less academic motivations for intercalating were that it would give me a MASSIVE summer holiday right before my elective that I could use for travelling and in a way make up for never having a gap year as I always feel pretty jealous hearing about all the exciting things friends have got up to on theirs.

My orginial plan was to travel in the country I am doing my elective before heading to the hospital for that. Hasnt quite worked out like that as I am doing my elective in Tanzania but couldn't find others who wanted to travel there first and didn't feel it would be the safest place to travel as a lone female. So intead I am travelling through S.E. Asia with a group of friends as one of the group, my housemate is doing her elective in thailand at the thai/burma border where there is a small hospital set up for refugees from burma and having also intercalated she was keen to travel here first. So currently I am in cambodia having already been in Thailand for the past 3 weeks and I'm heading soon to Laos. Then I will head back to the UK for just 5 days before heading straight to Tanzania, pretty excited!

Am having an amazing time but won't dwell on it much as is very non medical for the most part. Gained my intercalated degree grade whilst here and got a 2.1, tad disappointed to be honest as was let down my my dissertation which was a 2.1 - most of my other modules were firsts or only just off but as dissertation was a 1/3 of my grade and that was a lowish 2.1 the other modules couldn't pull my grade up enough. But I'm not too gutted because I had an amazing year that I will never forget and met a lot of truly awesome people so when it comes to it I see getting a 2.1 as a bit of a bonus on top of a good year :). Plus this year has allowed me to save up to be where I am at the moment so can't complain too much!

The only medical experience I have had here was giving blood at a cambodian childrens hospital as we had seen posters everywhere asking for tourists to donate as there is a current epidemic of dengue haemorragic fever - a tropical disease that like malaria is transmitted by mosquito bites. I've been cramming a bit for my elective during the long bus journeys and this was one of the tropical diseases I had learnt about so it felt pretty good to do a bit to help those kids suffering from it. It was also interesting to compare the blood giving process here to that of england, there were actually very few differences and I was impressed at how efficient and well carried out it was here (not that I am saying the UKs process isnt! Because we have a great blood donating scheme) despite Cambodia being a very poor country.

Like England we got free snacks after donating to help prevent feeling faint, unlike England we also got this very fetching free t shirt. Win!

Now on to my elective... For those reading this from a non medical background, an elective is where we get the chance to carry out an 8 week placement in a hospital/ clinic anywhere in the world. The only stipulation is that it is safe to visit - ie not in the middle of a war. This is a pretty amazing opportunity and not one that I intend to squander so whilst I know some students view it as a chance for a holiday somewhere sunny, I really hope to get stuck in with the work at the hospital and hopefully gain a lot of valuable experience and make some kind of difference at the hospital. This is part of my medical school training that I have been looking forward to since before I even started med school and I imagine lots of medical students/ wannabe medical students who possibly read this may feel the same so I will try and blog lots throughout my elective - or at least write in a diary and type up later if I can't get the computer access.

But thats all for now, hope everyone has a great summer! Halfadoc x

Finals, but not final Finals

Am now in the middle of finals revision. It is quite an odd experience as this is my intercalated degree finals not my medical finals. So for most people at Lufbra this is the last set of exams before they finally graduate and so this revision period is the final effort to finish their 3 (or more years) of study and then its real world time. However for us intercalators it is just the end of this year and then right back to medical school.

Its quite hectic partly because have deadlines for medical school stuff to be sorting out (such as vaccinations and visas for my elective which is now very soon) but at least I have it easier than some of the intercalators from other medical schools - some of them officially start their next year at medical school before they have finished their exams here! (Lufbra is quite late finishing compared to other unis) . Nonetheless am currently in exam hell, so this is the extent of update that I am writing for now; first exam on monday, last on the following tuesday - so all nicely rammed together, fun fun fun! Module I am currently revising is horrific as for some unknown reason it contains lots of maths including stuff like magic/imaginary numbers. I remain unsure of why or where the relevance is.... Still week and a half then: intercalated degree= tick,done!