It has been two weeks since my last update. And the unthinkable has happened…. I have found the rotation that is so uninspiring to me, that I had hoped two weeks would give me something to write about. Alas, it is not to be!
I am now on a 4 week Mental Health rotation (a.k.a. Psychiatry) and after the first day I had already had enough. Given that the first two days were pure theory, where consultants stood in front of us and rambled off in montonous voices exactly was was written on the overhead – they could market themselves as a cure for insomnia!!! The only reprieve was a short hour lecture on the Monday where a Afrikaans consultant (with heavily accented English) spoke a bit about Dementia (not the most entertaining topic, but it still was a highlight of the day!)
I am based “in the community” which means I miss out on all the exciting patients who are admitted into the Psych hospitals with interesting cases of thinking they are royalty or that governments are tracking their thoughts. Instead I am stuck at Clifton House (though very beautiful, right next to the river) and get to deal with…. Depression.
I admit that I am intensely jealous of Graeme and Stuart when they relate their hospital encounters. I am less enthused by my days. The highlight of the two weeks was speaking to someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder (now renamed Emotional Instability Personality Disorder) and was also a drug deal and user (he was busy chewing on a joint while chatting to me!!!)… he spoke quite candidly of nearly murdering a fellow drug dealer and what life in prison is really like.
Otherwise I have been following the CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurses) on their home visits to patients and have been getting very sad in the process. To hear some of the stories that people tell about their lives is truly horrible! I think all the negativity was a bit too much for my immune system as I developed ‘flu last week and have been in and out of bed inbetween travelling around with the CPN’s. Though I am pleased to say that today I am feeling nearly 100% better again.
On a positive note, we celebrated little (and she is tiny… barely reaches my shoulder!) Sahira’s 21st birthday in the first week… we all went to Joe Rigatoni’s for some pizza. And that Friday a group of us went out to a Vegetarian restaurant in Eaglescliffe as a treat, which was very nice.
My paeds rotation had ended and with it comes the end of February. It has been a busy week in that the wards are quite full again, mainly with a viral respiratory illness that is doing the rounds and causing all the kids to wheeze (it is quite unnerving!). This made the consultants a bit more stressed than usual, causing them to send us students off on “errands” (by this I mean wild goose chases) when they felt we were underfoot. My most memorable one this week was a “run to the A&E as we have received a crash bleep from there” and when we eager beavers arrived there the A&E staff just laughed at us!
Monday we also had a bit of snow, luckily it soon stopped and had melted by the evening again, but the temperatures remained icey! And we have also had quite a bit of rain.
The week was spent basically finishing off all the odds and ends left at the end of the rotation and also some last minute cramming of info for the assessment.
I had my final assessment on Friday, which went very well. My patient was a 4 year old girl who was very chatty and due to be discharged that day. When I asked why she had come into hospital she replied “because my teeth were chattering!” She had come in due to a high temperature that wouldn’t come down (another “It’s A Virus” diagnosis).
So I actually enjoyed my last week on paeds, which makes a difference when I look back at it. A consultant told me that paediatrics is like veterinary medicine, you have to guess at the problem in the young ones as they can’t tell you whats wrong, and when a kid is feeling ill they will also lie down and not move until they feel better. He basically said I should beware the child who isn’t active!
My weekend was lovely…. I lazed on Saturday and filed away all my notes and books from this rotation. And today Katie, Attia and I went on a road trip. Initially we were going to go to the Lake District for a day, but due to the bad weather predicted we decide to drive to Edinburgh instead. Our idea was to go to the zoo, but when we arrived it was pouring rain so we detoured to the city centre (and the rain miraculously stopped once we parked the car). We then wandered around the city centre (and it was a freezing 3 degrees!), toured a few museums and ended up having lunch at Pizza Hut at 3, after which we headed back down to Teesside again (a 300 mile round trip). It was a really fun day and I am now thoroughly relaxed and ready to tackle my new rotation tomorrow: Mental Health!
What a week! It seems that I’m exposed to all sorts while living here for the year… the pub down the road has just been barricaded shut after a police raid over the weekend! According to the local taxi driver the police found drugs, and the taxi driver said that it was a common occurrence to see people sniffing cocaine off the tables inside! Geesh! My question was how can they afford drugs when this area is the poorest in England? The mind boggles. I have since also seen a drug gopher peddling drugs for the dealer on our own street corner!I definitely can’t wait to move back to Newcastle to a better area!
Socially this week has been fun… Tuesday was pancake day (the day before Lent) so Katie and I went to Attia and made pancakes, first savoury veggie-mince and cheese filled ones and afterwards nutella and ice cream filled ones for dessert. Seeing as how we only finished eating at 11pm, I felt rather ill and couldn’t sleep well at all when I eventually got home! On Sunday Katie and Attia also came past for a few hours just for some tea (very English!) and a chat.
And paediatrics this past week has been rather sad. Two non-accidental injuries (child abuse) cases camein and there was also one death of a baby who had been born with a congenital abnormailty that caused the muscles to not work adequately and was simply not compatible with life. Very sad for the parents as well as she made it till two months.
So I’m rather relieved that this will be my last week in paeds as I’m finding sick kids rather trying emotionally. Simply can’t toughen up enough to not feel horrid when the kids scream while blood is taken or when they are too young to understand what is happening when they feel so ill!
I have decided that the best job in the whole hospital has to be that of the play specialist in the paediatrics ward! They spend all day playing and painting and generally being creative with the kids, and they even know how to make those animals, flowers, etc. out of balloons (like the clowns do at funfairs!)
It seems like there is no bout of anything going around at the moment, because the paeds wards are almost empty, barring a few who were admitted for asthma or gastro and needed monitoring. So my week has been rather quiet. Even my on call was quiet and I was sent home early on that evening as no one was being admitted.
Spent my one afternoon playing with a 13 month old who has been admittedbecause he isn’t reaching his height and weight centiles. It was discovered that his mom, a youngster herself, is still feeding him pureed food and generally smothers him with so much devotion that he isnt allowed to be a little boy and explore. She is going to parent classes and the hospital staff is introducing the toddler to textured foods. I watched him end up wearing more lumpy mash, mince and peas than he ate but he had a blast! He also thinks I’m a complete loony as I clowned around with him, though I did get some smiles from him (which are apparently a rarity!)
I also survived my presentation on Tuesday. I was hoping that no one would attend but due to the decreased activity on the wards it seemed everyone had time to spare and attendance was very good. But I held my own, and they gave me good feedback at the end of it all (though I felt a bit shakey after it was all over! What an adrenaline rush!)
Saturday I caught the train to Newcastle and, after a brief visit to Wally, met Emma, Renee and Nicola for lunch. It was fun seeing them all and catching up on all the “craic” (a new word pronounced “crack” that I’ve recently learnt – means gossip or scandal or goings on in Irish!)
The weather, though cold, is staying constant, despite the threatened snow (according to BBC weather) and some sleet. But I am hoping for an early Spring.
And as another week begins I am not sure if I should wish to be busy, as it would mean some kiddies getting sick. So I am just letting myself be surprised!
So I’ve survived my first week on the Paediatrics rotation. The first day was the worst with non-stop lectures during which they bombarded us with information on how to calculate feeding ratios, fluid ratios, drug ratios and what seemed like any other ratio calculation they could think of! I was absolutely shattered and fell into bed very early that night.
Tuesday was our first time on the wards and chatting to the patients and parents. That was less hectically paced, but once again it was a long day as I was on call that night until 8pm. But a lovely F1 doctor took me under her wing and was very sweet in teaching me all about paediatrics. I even got to analyse urine under the microscope…. Not the highlight of my evening! But what was really exciting was when the patient who I took a history from and examined in my Obs and Gynae rotation assessment last week came in with her 3 day old little girl and I got to clerk the case… it was so nice to see what had happened and how they all were. The baby was jaundiced so was put under phototherapy lights, but then was discharged Thursday morning.
We were also lucky (in a way) that our tutor was away so many of our seminars on Thursday and Friday were cancelled. And the childrens wards are nearly empty, with all the patients well enough to have been discharged, and there were no out patient clinics on the go either. This meant that we were home by 3pm Thursday and were only in for an hour on Friday. It was lovely!!!
Saturday and Sunday were again rather lazy, I spent it catching up with work and Saturday evening Attia and I headed over to David’s for a movie evening (we watched Wall-E on Blu-ray on his huge flatscreen… like being in the cinema!)
Sadly I know that this coming week will be hectic catching up on those seminars that were cancelled and I also drew the short straw in that I will be giving a presentation to a group of consultants on “pain management in paediatrics” on Tuesday, a topic I have no expertise on and have spent the weekend researching! I am hoping they wont ask any questions and that I don’t disgrace myself. I will let you know how it turns out.
Wow! The end of January already! And with it the end of my Obs and Gynae rotation.
This week has been quite mellow and I got to spend most of it coasting from one ward to another as it was really quiet (quite unusual for this specialty). The midwives are now convinced that I am a good luck charm, as everywhere I go the patient flow seems to stop! This means they manage to catch up on all their paperwork, while I had time to read the numerous hospital guidelines too.
Even the delivery suite was quiet, with NO women in labour, but I did watch two Caesarean sections (performed using spinal anaesthesia, which I found interesting until I got quizzed by the anaethetist – but as soon a you mention “I’m a 3rd year” they miraculously start teaching instead). But I have still decided that natural childbirth is seriously the way to go, unless obviously there are medical reasons to do surgery. It was all just too vicious for something that’s supposed to be natural!
I got to examine the newly born babies though, one was only 1,9kg and was sent to the neonatal ward to go into a heated cot, and the other one had this amazing fluff of hair all over except on top of its head… it looked like one of those monks who shaved the top off! Its mom was also the tiniest pregnant woman I have seen to date on this rotation… she didn’t even reach my shoulder! And her belly was huge (hence the need for a Caesarean).
Thursday was my assessment… it all went well except I was exhausted after my hour long grilling session from the tutor after all the practical bits were completed! But I did well, so am quite pleased!
I was really happy for the weekend though. Its snowed on Friday night, but not as much as previously. Stuart and I went to Mount Grace Priory to do some exploring. This is an old Carthusian monastery, and the history of the place was amazing, the snow made everything look especially picturesque. They even had one of the cells restored, so we could get an idea of how they lived.
We then walked up through the woods bordering the priory and across fields to the nearby village of Osmotherley. It was really quaint. Farmers sold free range eggs in front of their gates (they just leave the eggs in baskets with a sign telling you the price and a pot containing change) and we also explored the local church and cemetery. At lunch time we even visited the pub for some steak and onion pie! We also saw a car registered in Graz, Austria, in the parking area!
All in all it was a lovely day (and I was filthy up to my knees after stepping into a waterlogged patch on my way back to the car that had been covered by snow).
Sunday was a lazier day in which I got odds and ends sorted for my new 4-week rotation on paediatrics. Attia and Katie came to visit in the evening and left quite late, and we shared a lot of laughs catching up on our latest exploits in our various rotations.
I know that my base unit for this year is in a rather “rough” area, but I honestly have to laugh sometimes at the characters I see here… I saw a guy at the hospital (while randomly walking down one of the corridors) who had tattooed “Damaged Goods” on his shaved head! Ha ha!
This week was a nicely productive week as I had managed to complete all my learning outcomes for this rotation and am now free to “coast” through my last week if I so wish.
There was nothing wildly exciting happening on any of my shifts, which was a mixture of Infertility clinics, Gynae on call and Antenatal Day Assessment units. But on Thursday we had a teaching day on the Neonatal unit (even though we only start our Paediatric rotation beginning of February). There we met the woman who has been in the UK papers for having 2 sets of identical twins after invitro fertilisation in which two fertilised eggs were put back but both further divided, forming 4 babies! Apparently this rare occurrence is something like 1 in a million.
There was also a woman in the Antenatal clinic who had two uteruses and was pregnant in both, but a month apart!!! Very, very rare too!
Saturday I took the train to Newcastle. I managed to get on the slower train (which leaves 5 minutes before the one I wanted and takes half an hour longer to get there) but it was a scenic route past the coast, and although it was overcast, the scenery was still beautiful and I saw many pheasants (or perhaps they were grouse, they were definitely some kind of feathered fowl) in the fields.
Wally had baked a birthday cake for me when I visited her and I had a very nice visit for a few hours before I caught the train to Nicola’s, who I hadn’t seen since she dropped me off from the airport beginning of January!How time flies!
We went out to Durham for a lovely meal and a long chat and she then dropped me back at the station to catch the last train back to Thornaby. And it was an eventful trip back when a group of guys who were celebrating a 21st boarded the train in fancy dress! There was a gorilla in a tutu, a baby (the birthday boy), a pirate, a granny and even a Mr T. They were a raucous bunch and I was grateful that they were continuing onto Middlesbrough central when I got off at Thornaby!
And so I enter my final week on the Obs and Gynae rotation. I have some assessments to do but otherwise expect to have an enjoyable week, though I am hoping that the snowflakes I saw earlier were just a figment of my imagination and that we will not be experiencing any more snow this Winter!
What a week! Monday morning saw me finding my way to the Outpatients department to work with one of the Consultant surgeons at his morning clinic, the “Obstetric Medical Disorders clinic”, which is where all pregnant women are seen who have other underlying problems like diabetes etc. Very interesting and I was left with one of the registrars who was Egyptian and had only been working in the UK for 1 month. But he allowed me a lot of freedom to examine bumps etc. so it wasn’t too bad a morning.
That afternoon we had a lecture and also each prepared a powerpoint presentation on various topics.
Tuesday was my 30th birthday and I had an early start to get to Hartlepool hospital where I was scheduled to work in Gynae theatre. The surgeon was an hour late, but was very nice and I was told to scrub up so that I could also help in theatre. The first op was an endometrial ablation, a nice gentle introductin with no real gore (for which I was grateful), the second op was an abdominal hysterectomy. Here the surgeon was in his element , trying to convince me to become a surgeon and insisted that I stick my hand into the patients abdo to feel her uterus! The anaethetist was rather concerned when my face (according to him) turned very pale and insisted that if I faint I fall backwards! This comment made me take a deep breath and pull myself together!
The third op was with another surgeon, another hysterectomy but this one involved laparoscopic surgery. This meant that it took longer and I was very, very bored by the end of it! I am definitely not cut out to work in theatres!
My afternoon day clinic theatre was cancelled, so I ended up chceking out the midwifery led birthing centre, which was very quiet with no women in labour, so the midwives had fun showing me all the different contraptions they have in the birthing rooms (which seem to be a variety of bean bags, banana hammocks and big balls) and letting me try them out!
Vicki and I then waited for Emily to finish her afternoon theatre rotation so we could catch a lift home, and waited, and waited… at 5h30 (after I had waiting 1 ½ hours already), we received a call from Emily, who had forgotten her phone at home, to say she just got our message and had completely forgotten us! I was not happy since the next shuttle was only an hour later and the train left around the same time.
Luckily Katie came to the rescue, as she phoned shortly afterwards to find out whether we should go for a meal that evening to celebrate my birthday. After hearing our dilemma and deciding that to wait so long for transport, especially on my birthday, was madness, she came to collect us. After dropping Vicki off we headed to T.G.I. Fridays where we met up with Attia and had a really good evening!
Wednesday was a mellow day spent at the GP for 3 hours where we once again did role playing. The rest of the afternoon I spent doing more presentations (I am getting to be a whizz at powerpoint!)
Thursday was an absolute brilliant day! I spent the morning in the Gynae Outpatients with Mr Mostafa, a really brilliant consultant, and the afternoon in the Antenatal clinic with Mr Magani who is a legend! He is the consultant who takes us for many of our seminars and calls me “Angela Merkel” as he insists I will be the next Chancellor of Germany. I have tried to explain that this is highly unlikely, but he just laughs and introduces me as such. He’s also hunted down every South African who works in the hospital so he can introduce me! Definitely a strange but nice guy!
Friday I had a very gross morning in Colposcopy clinic with a crazy Glaswegian Consultant. Lets just say the smell of burning cervix is not pleasant and I was quite proud that nothing came from the constant nausea I experienced in those few hours!
That afternoon we had lectures and at 4pm my day at the hospital ended on a high note when Mandy came to fetch me! She came to spend the weekend and it was so much fun seeing her again!
The weekend seemed to fly by, and Saturday evening we went out to Walkabout (an Ozzie-style pub and restaurant in Middlesbrough) where we had a lovely meal and I could introduce her to all my crazy new friends here in the Boro. It was a lovely evening, though I may have underestimated the strength of the “Cheeky Kylie” cocktails (a mixture of Port and WKD Blue)! Sunday went way too fast and it was so sad when Mandy had to leave to head back home.
So after the lovely weekend I now have another full week ahead of me!
Happy New Year! This year started off very eventfully for me, as I flew back to the U.K. on New Years Day, taking with me lots of memories and a very swollen right foot from standing on a bee the day before!
The flight was not fun, my foot throbbed the whole way and there was a kid screaming in the seat behind me for most of the flight too! And I had 6 hours in Heathrow before catching my connecting flight to Newcastle, during which I had to fetch my luggage and change terminals.
While in Heathrow there was no sign of snow, this was not the case on landing in Newcastle. It was hectic! Nicola drove me back to Middlesbrough and it was rather hair raising driving on roads that had not been cleared!
I also started on my new rotations this week. I am now completing my EJR (Essential Junior Rotations) and the first block for me is Obstetrics and Gynaecology. 5 of us met up in Hartlepool University Hospital, a half hour drive from where we stay, on Monday morning where we received our personal timetables (which makes it a pain organising lifts etc. as we are all in different places every day) and we met some of theTeaching Fellows too.
Tuesday was my first practical day. I started at 7h15 in North Tees hospital, this is closer to us, and the weather also turned really cold (-6 C when I left home that morning!) and snow was falling constantly. I worked in the Delivery Suite that day, and have decided I am really not patient enough for this specialty. After watching natural labour progress very, very slowly for a few hours, I was grateful to be rescued by one of the Consultant surgeons and go on a ward round with him. Eventually though, at the end of my shift, one baby girl decided to make all the waiting worthwhile and the (16 year old!) new mom was sooo grateful that the pain was all over! But I was shattered at 5 that evening when I left the hospital.
Wednesday was half day GP, and because of the rubbsih weather no patients arrived, so we ended up role-playing scenarios.
Thursday morning we had a free morning, which I spent preparing a presentation due next Monday. That afternoon we had a lecture at the hospital.
Friday morning was a pain as David and myself needed to get to Hartlepool hospital for 9am, and no one in our group who has a car was going that way. In the end I left the house at 7h30 and caught the transfer shuttle from North Tees hospital to there. I had a morning at the Urology Outpatients department, where the Consultant arrived wearing a Tweed coat and Tweed hat and Wellies! Naturally he changed his shoes before seeing patients (most of those who had appointments again didn’t show – the weather is really annoying!). He also gave us a lift back to North Tees hospital that afternoon (in his Jaguar!!!) as he was giving us the lecture there that afternoon.
So a whole week just zoomed by, and yesterday I spent most of my day in bed doing some course work as it was still snowing. That evening Stuart, Graeme (both of whom are doing Child Health rotation in North Tees) and I caught the train to Newcastle where we were meeting up with a group of friends for my pre-birthday meal . Our first train was cancelled due to the weather, but we eventually arrived.
The evening was great, we had a meal at a lovely little Italian restaurant and I was really spoilt.
We even managed to get the last train back to Thornaby, though it suffered engine failure halfway and we then had to change trains! Definitely an evening filled with adventures!
So today I plan on being lazy… it has eventually stopped snowing and evrything has started melting already and is looking pitiful. I have another busy week ahead of me, and am spending the whole of my birthday in gynae theatre which I am not wildly amused by!
Nothing exciting has been happening this week, except that I have officially finished FoCP. Now have exams on Tuesday and Wednesday and will then have 2 weeks of holiday before I start the Essential Junior Rotations in the hospitals.
This past week I was on Musculoskeletal and Elderly Care. On Monday I sat in on a Back pain clinic (boring) and in the afternoon the 5th years taught us some examination techniques (more revision). Tuesday I was in the Spinal Assessment Unit where I sat and watched a Spinal Surgeon discuss treatment options with patients. Again very boring.
Wednesday I had the day off so spent most of it in bed doing work.
Thursday and Friday was Elderly Care which was very enjoyable. We went on ward rounds and tried to figure out what was happening in some of these very complex patients. I really enjoyed that!
Friday, being our last day, meant we were assessed on Professionalism and had a meeting with our Tutor. I was (Murphy’s law) the last person meaning I only got home at 5!
Saturday Graeme and I went to Sahira’s house where a group of us practiced for our Osce Exam on Tuesday. We spent the whole day doing that. Sunday I did some preparation for the theory paper on Wednesday.
And now I am really looking forward to a break from work and relaxing over the Christmas Holiday. Wishing you all a lovely Festive Season and Happy New Year!
