Junior Doctor application screw up

Those of you who have been following the news may know that this week there's been yet another screw up with Junior doctor job applications.  Unfortunately for me, I'm now in the cohort that has been affected.  Heres a news article that summarises it all: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/27/medical-students-job-offers-exam

But basically what happened was:
This Monday: We all found out what deanery we had been allocated for our F1 and F2 jobs.   This allocation is based on our score out of 100: 50 points come from educational scores e.g. ranking within the medical school, having publications, having extra degrees etc and 50 points come from the "SJT exam" - a multi-guess "choose the most appropriate action" ethicalish type exam (its a bit of a joke of an exam anyway and I doubt it really shows who will be the better doctor but that's another issue entirely).  Anyway on Monday I got my first choice and was over the moon!  Spent quite a significant amount of time on Monday evening starting to rank my job options.

Tuesday evening (after our medical schools were shut so we couldn't even get advice):  We receive an email from FPAS (the organisation responsible for allocating our jobs) telling us that they had detected an error in the marking of the SJT and will be remarking a subset of papers (this has since been changed to EVERYONES papers) and so will have to reallocate jobs too and we are to consider Mondays allocations as no longer correct.  There wasn't actually an apology anywhere in the first email..

We've had more emails since and basically it seems like the main issue is the scanners of the electronic sheets had failed to detected rubbed out answers properly leading to some people having "too many responses" recorded for certain questions and so gaining no marks.  However there is another issue that they have not yet told us as they have admitted our marks can go up or down...Furthermore they have admitted to detecting another error in the week prior to job allocations but are claiming that was an isolated error... What a shambles!
So now with finals mere weeks away we have the stress of waiting again and then when deaneries are reallocated those at my medical school will be forced with picking actual jobs (you have to rank 100 odd actual jobs) right amongst our finals time.  Ideal!

Hope other fifth years are bearing up under the strain ok!

Halfadoc xx

 
A Wikipedia screen grab after the screwup - see second paragraph! Click on picture to see it :)
 
 

Not my blonde moment

Not my blonde moment

Firstly I'm sorry for being v.quiet on the blog front for a long while - final year is proving to be tough: Long days on the wards, teaching in the evenings and then the feeling that every spare moment I have should be spent revising...

Still finals will be finished in 3 months time hopefully provided I don't have any retakes *Touches everything wooden in sight*; so then I will try and catch up telling you tales of my fifth year because ironically along with being one of the busiest, its been one of the most worth blogging about!

Anyway today's post is not actually my story but a close friends which I thought was too good to share...

So this happened when my friend "B" was in her 3rd year.  She was due to watch angiography for the first time (angiography involves putting a small tube into one of your blood vessels and passing it up to the heart and then adding contrast.  This allows xrays to be taken of the small vessels of the heart to see if there is any narrowing or clots.  It is usually done if the patient has had a heart attack or suspected angina.)  Because of the xrays involved, medical staff have to wear heavy protective clothing or the regular exposure they get would cause them health risks.  Medical students also have to wear this clothing if they have to be present in such procedures.

Now the problem was than B hadn't ever been shown how to put on this clothing (to be honest, its pretty self explanatory though...) and nor had she seen people wearing it before.  One of the parts of the clothing is a thyroid guard which is basically like a kind of bib as shown below.  However poor B didn't know this so just put it on how she assumed it was meant to go.... .... Still I hear VISORS are making a comeback!


Apparently the consultant cracked up every time he saw her from then on!


Halfadoc x

P.s B has made it to fifth year with the rest of us and now knows when and when not to go for the 90's raver visor look!

2 prison guards, 1 patient, 1 pair of handcuffs, 1 nurse, 1 cannula, NO PRESSURE

2 prison guards, 1 patient, 1 pair of handcuffs, 1 nurse, 1 cannula, NO PRESSURE

I've come along a lot in the last few weeks at my clinical procedures.  I've improved from wanting to hide in the nearest supply closet at the suggestion of cannulating a patient to actually feeling pretty confident I can pop it in provided the patient is not completely shut down/ older than time itself (for those non medical personnel not in the know, a cannula is basically a tube you put into a vein so that you can give IV drugs/fluids through it, it usually stays in there a few days).

Those of you who are observant and have been following my blog regularly  might have realised I have only ever blogged about successfully getting a cannula in ONCE, that would be because until a few weeks ago I had in fact only got a cannula in ONCE (yes, I am a final year and yes I realise this is bad) which was on my elective over a year ago and then only under guidance from a midwife.  Still after a few weeks on surgery and 1 in ITU I'm finally more at the level a fifth year should be at and have now done quite a few, but heres the story of my first two sucessful patients.....

1 week old with a MELONoma (sorry I doctored the word a bit...) he was a bit fruity... (yes yes brother, I stole your joke, I'd vancouver reference you but this blogs anon so tough luck :P)

Ok, this patient was a mango.  The nurses mango to be precise (I think she ate it afterwards and all :S).  He made good practise for how to hold and insert cannulas though, very forgiving and very patient, so I think I owe my first actual successful unassisted cannula to him.  Here he is in all his cannulated glory:

Incidentally don't try and flush saline into a cannulated mango, it WILL squirt out and hit your reg in the face. Opps :/.

The patient in handcuffs
So off I went to cannulate my first actual patient here at the suggestion of mango-nurse, and she came with me so she could sign off my cannulation skill box if I managed / take over if I did not. All fine so far, till I get the patient who turns out to be handcuffed to a prison guard with another one watching... So my cannulation attempt will in fact have 8 eyes on it, excellent, no pressure... IS IT ME OR IS IT SUDDENLY REALLY HOT IN HERE?!

Furthermore the vein I like the look of is partially being covered by the handcuff, I try to pull the handcuff down a bit (wondering as I do if thats even allowed or if a prison guard is about to yell at me) but it gets caught on the wrist bone so I assume its meant to not go any further and give up tugging and try to work around the handcuff when the patient impatiently tugs it down for me, opps, good start.

But anyway long story short, I did get the cannula in first time (yay) but I did also give the bed a bit of a blood splattering which mango-nurse was less keen about, never mind, win some lose some.

But yes, not the first unassisted cannulation experience I was expecting!

Halfadoc x