"In Praise of Yorkshire"

Day 4 of intensive clinical experience.
There is now a routine to getting up way too early, meeting my fellow 'buddy' classmate to take a train and a bus to get to the hospital.
On the train we talk through the day over coffee and ruffle through our 'Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary' and Churchill's "Differential Diagnosis" clarifying new terms and symptoms learned the previous day.
The hospital doors swing open and we are greeted by lovely nurses and some fellow classmates. All of us far too eager and a bit shell shocked that we are now 'student doctors' -we adhere to the same regulations as our superiors and are expected to have impeccable comportment at all times. Most of our patients think we are doctors no matter how hard we try to clarify that we are only students.
Mornings begin with ward rounds with a favorite specialist nurse (God bless these super hard working people!!! With 25 years experience behind them they know just as much as the doctors, and we all know it), lunch (more talk about what we are learning and seeing and a chance to catch up with peers and to see what they've been up to), then afternoon clinics- more pamphlets and things to read up on and before we know it its 5pm and time to head home. Loads of reading and far too much crammed into our heads in a days work.
Two interesting experiences:
1. My first encounter with a bad diagnosis: having the doctor tell a patient he had prostate cancer and seeing how lovely the nurses were-by the time he walked out of the consultation he was smiling and joking around.
2. We had a young lady flat-line for 18 seconds. Someone was headed for the crash cart when she began to come around on her own. I had the oxygen ready to go. Apparently its always the young ones that are the most trouble when in comes to syncope.
Two things really struck me about this: how quickly you can lose someone, and how exciting it is to see a patient come out of a bad patch and be ok.

The heading is only because I did a neurological exam on a dear old 91 year old lady and when asked to write a sentence she wrote: In Praise of Yorkshire.
I do love me some Yorkshire folk.

I am pond-scum

I'm sure most people have now experienced the wonderfulness that is SCRUBS. One of my favorite things about the show is the relationship between JD and the janitor (oops- I mean waste management engineer) Whatever. The point is, JD has had 8 + years of school and the WME hasn't got any. Yet as an intern, JD is so low on the hierarchy of hospital life, that even the janitor has a hold over him.

Well friends, I am not even an intern (ie Jr House officer for our English mates) and therefore, within a hospital setting, I am even lower than pond scum.

Three weeks of intensive clinical experience here I come!

A day in the respiratory clinic

I spent the day in the respiratory clinic. I saw patients with conditions such as asthma, bronchiectesis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder ... well you get the idea.
I percussed, listened to their lungs with a handy dandy stethoscope, talked over their conditions with the lovely consultant and on top of all of this- I learned proper hand washing techniques (that’s right! I'm doing MY part to stop the spread of MRSA in NHS hospitals!).
Other things of note:
1. number of patients I saw: 7
2. number of wheezes heard with stethoscope: 2
3. number of crackling lungs heard with stethoscope: 2
4. number of edemas I palpated: 2
5. number of X rays on SCRUBS that are presented wrong way round on the opening credits in Season 1 : 1

Yes. I know I'm a dork.
I'm just loving medicine- what can I say? I'm finding everything fascinating and exciting. The next few weeks are all on the wards so watch this space