Mind you...

nothing beats a good bit of Phil Collins.....must go find that song...

I want one

Has this advert been screened in the UK? Because it should have been (I haven't seen it....).
All donations of coca cola drinking polar bears/baby penguins gratefully accepted as a christmas present

Hmm

The first partial face transplant patient is now able to smile - according to the BBC

However, I do find the line:

"Mrs Dinoire has told him she could smile and looked like herself again. "

...slightly ironic....

Concern

This is an interesting article on the BBC website. Published yesterday it's calling for more consultants in hospitals. Makes sense I suppose - but the article also highlights the problem with the European Working Time Directive. I reckon that if I went into lectures on Monday morning, and asked my year of medics what they knew about this, none of them would know. Or at least very few.
And don't misunderstand me, I'm not adverse to working less hours, but not at the expense of education. I've given up 4 extra years already just to get where I am now, and I want to be the best doctor I can be,* but how are doctors in 5 years going to compare with 'old school' doctors who had to slog it out and work over 100 hours a week?
I got into this medical school knowing that I was embarking on possibly the most challenging thing in my life, yet I feel I'm going to be inferior at the end of it!
Combine this with DIY medicine (we set our own goals and teach ourselves dontyouknow!) and you have the problem that worries me most about the NHS and my own career development. Maybe I should have done a traditional course rather than an integrated one...
My lecturers tell me there's no difference at the end of the course in the world of work.
Looks like I will have to wait and see.




*Sounds terribly niave and cliched doesn't it!

Panic Stations!

Jenny is trying to turn me into a lady. She might not be a very good cook, but she is amazingly ladylike. She is never to been seen with a rucksack - always a handbag. And she always has a string of pearls elegantly draped around her neck. It's scary, it really is. And now, she's trying to make me into a lady.
If you hand't already worked it out, I'm a bit of a tom boy. I like adrenaline sports, motor racing, rock climbing and paintballing. While I'm very open minded, you probably would never get me to sit and watch showjumping at a country show while politely applauding.
Take my movie taste for example, I like gory films like Saw 3 and Scream, and gangster films like Layer Cake. Jenny has just lent me the Princess Diaries. But, I'll give it a go.
Music tastes - Jenny likes Westlife and Britney. I like Greenday, Muse and Scissor Sisters. Don;t even get me started on when we introduced her to Tenacious D. I've seen less scared looking rabbits in my car headlights!
Sadly, there's just a little too much ex-goth left lurking in my bloodstream, does anyone have a cure?

NHS ID

I don't know what the weather was like for the rest of the South today, but it threw it down all day here today.
Sadly, I had to go and get my NHS ID card and be photographed for it.....
It's not pretty.

He's Back!!!!!!!!!!

The wanderer has returned! The Special Constable's blog has returned (using a different host so please update your URLs) and blogging has recommenced as of today!

On behalf of the general blogosphere I want to welcome Lennie Briscoe back to the real world!

Lack of geographical awareness

Tom to Merys (text message): Thurrock is in Essex, so is Dagenham. You are in Essex you wassock!

Can I help it that my geography is a bit shit - I thought Thurrock was a part of Dagenham, and had said so to Tom.

I know, I'm a bit thick sometimes....

Keep Off!!

At the beginning of the year I was really looking forward to sharing a kitchen again. I had delusions of sharing the cooking and chatting and eating together.

Sadly not quite so true. Jenny, Liam and myself often eat together, but that's about it.

Some housemates come and go with the wind, leaving only the faint smell of food to remind us that they're still alive.

Sadly though, my patience, my permanent marker and my food supplies are wearing thin. I thought I'd outgrown the stage of having to write my name in large letters on all of my food, but depressingly it's a necessity again.

I'm getting particularly cheesed off with break and milk being 'borrowed' by housemates as whenever I want any there's none left! And before anyone suggests it, fridges are prohibited in rooms and it's too warm to keep food there otherwise. I'm kind of tied, as it's kitchen or starve.

I guess I'll just have to crack out the laxatives!

Hans

This is Hans. I know he says he's called Tim, but I decided to rename him.
He helped me to drive this weekend.
Oddly his female counterpart wound me up beyond all belief and had me yelling back at the screen. I really don't know how the ambulance service cope with them all the time. I know they're very useful and I would have been up the proverbial creek without Hans, but the voice would get on my nerves for all-day everyday use.

I also did a 'first' yesterday - the M25. I've heard many bad things about the M25, but have yet to experience them! Traffic was light, moving and not hogging lanes, so I could nip through at 70 and get on my way without annoying everyone.

And no, I didn't crash someone else's car, although I may have burnt the clutch slightly....

Road Trip

Today I am driving a very long distance, and that includes the M25. It will be the first time I have motorway driven outside of the M62 in Yorkshire and I'm both excited and very nervous. I've been added fully comprehensively onto someone else's insurance, but I'm still teriffied of damaging their car.

But...

I get to drive again, which is something I never really realised how much I enjoy (and miss) until now!

*sigh*

It's the end of another long week and I'm exhausted. I know people who work will say that university is just a 'doss', but having worked 60+ hour weeks university is just as exhausting in my opinion.

When holding down a job, if you're lucky you can leave it behind at the end of the day and close the door on work.* Students don't get that luxury sadly - especially not medical students. We have constant pressure to be reading further material, practise clinical skills and history taking, and the ever important communication skills.

Along with this I have a job (which I need to be able to eat). We really need longer days or shorter teaching weeks.

Sometimes I genuinely wish I hadn't started another degree, as my conscience won't let me quit. I'm exhausted physically and mentally, and would desperately like a weekend off - but I have too much work to do to keep up with everyone else.

I'm finding PBL-style learning is very much based on self-teaching, which is fine if you can do it. Not sure I can.

* I am aware that this is not true of all jobs.

Mind my Mammaries

Boys, please consider kindly that when in a martial arts class and against an opposition of the female variety, kicking in the stomach means the stomach. My breasts will not be in that location for another 20 years, so if you're hitting them then you're kicking too high!

Ouch

The results of a good night

This is the result of a good night out. And I am a ho for not taking it off last night before I fell asleep. It's a miracle I took the contacts out.

Not drunk, just a lazy cow

Spooked

So somewhere in my logic I'd decided to wait until every one of my flat mates was on a geography field trip until I went to see Saw 3 with some medic friends, coming back to an empty flat.

Dead sensible

Sad but true

I was emailed this and I (sadly) agree with each and every point:

TOP 10 REASONS THAT UNIVERSITY IS LIKE PRIMARY SCHOOL
10. You cry for your mother.
9. You cross the street without looking for cars.
8. Snack time is a necessity.
7. You bundle up for the outdoors without caring what you look like (because everyone else looks as stupid as you do).
6. You stay at home and play games with your friends.
5. You wear your backpack on both shoulders.
4. You wear big mittens.
3. Playing in the snow is a legitimate activity.
2. You take naps.
1. You look forward to cheese toasties.

Another one bites the dust

It's been another long day here in the land of medical school and i'm exhausted.
I do however feel I have to comment on the recent report saying which medical school allegedly has the hardest working students. Now I appreciate that this study looks pretty straight forward - comparing hours of study between different subjects etc. I can't say it comes as much of a surprise to me that medical students do more work and have more contact time than media students.

What does surprise the hell out of me is that some students somewhere are managing to work an average of 45 hours a week (I don't know if this is extra to lectures etc, or including them - but it's still a hell of a lot!). Apparently students at the University of East Anglia studying medicine are managing to do an average of 45 hours a week study.

Quite glad that's not expected of me, I don't think I'd manage that many hours a week, in between paid employment, sport, trying to sleep and falling off a bike. And it worries me that potential medical students could see this artical and view it as a mandatory requirement etc. I know it would have alarmed me before I started medical school...

Anyhow, best of luck to all the medical students at the UEA, and keep hitting those books while the rest of us feel inferior!

For the full story please read the BBC links within the above mentioned URL, as it sites the statistics used to formulate the article.

I appreciate the validity....but....

I do realise why I have to learn communication skills, but really, pulling teeth would be less painful.

You see, while I'm a gobby cow for the most part, I can talk to patients. I really can, I have done and it doesn't actually worry me.

Make me analyse the way I speak to a patient and role play it in front of a crowd and I will fall apart. I stammer, lisp and go into full screensaver mode. It's depressing and makes me feel a right twat with people in my group.

If I could just talk to a patient rather than analysing all the various TLAs* I need to remember, I'd do so much better!


*TLA = three letter acronym - vastly dominant in the medical profession sadly!

Hmmm.....

I don't know why, but iTunes keeps playing Dr Jones by Aqua (it's set on random shuffle...) as well as Don't Worry Be Happy.

Odd how psychic they are isn't it?

Science Experiment

Sometimes I feel like my kitchen is becoming a science experiment. You see all my housemates are younger than me and this is their first degree. They've not really experienced university and a shared kitchen before, and the aftermath is frankly disgusting.

Our cleaner came today, and I've just cleaned up again, doing all the dishes and removing mould and scum from the sink.
This is my sink in the kitchen. I would like to point out that my pasta isn't that shape, and that I don't eat noodles either. Ming is about the only word I could think of to describe it.....

Touched

Tonight one of my peers rang me. I know this may not seem like an astounding revelation, but note my use of the word 'peer' and not 'friend'.

She called me because she was concerned about me after PBL close this week. Apparently I looked like I was having a shit week. And she's right. For my own reasons I've been like a bear with a sore head/back this week, and been in a really foul mood to anything that crossed my path or looked at me the wrong way.

Her concerns were touching and made me realise that if I'm feeling this negative towards everything at the moment, other people are picking up on it too, which isn't really what I want. While I'm normally pretty fine with wallowing in my own little hole, I don't really want to bring my group down with me.

I think I've put my finger on one of the main problems this week; I don't feel comfortable with my PBL group. This wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have to spend quite so much time with each other. My entire group of friends essentially revolves around PBL and it unnerves me slightly that I'm exposing myself so completely to what are essentially a bunch of strangers. We do PBL, Communication skills, clinical skills, and eventually placements together. There's just something within the group set-up that I feel 'not quite right' with, and can't quite place what it is.....

Anyhow, enough of the whining, I have ironing to do and TV to watch.

It's a hard life

My plan for tonight involves drinking this:









While painting these:






Watching Grey's Anatomy season 1 (On DVD), and simultaneously reading this:

I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too..... (or Watch that drunk pt 2)

It was all just a little bit reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz.... I wouldn't have been entirely surprised to hear nasty music playing and some flying monkeys following me around.

For there was I, cycling into university dressed as a witch with full velvet cloak and pointy hat, oh, and a lot of body paint. For obvious reasons I will not be posting the photographs. Needless to say they're amusing!
And apparently, being drunk and dressed as a witch makes me a better cyclist because I didn't fall off or cycle into anything.

This is where the post becomes 'watch that drunk part 2, as there I was, slightly intoxicated and cycling home, still all witchy, when I spotted a couple of delightfully drunk students quoting everything in a Shakespeare style rather loudly. I cycled past them oblivious but laughing to myself when I heard:

"What is this a-cycling before my eyes? It is a witch upon a bicycle, a-wailing
in the wind"

I don't recall any wailing, but my cloak was blowing rather dramatically... Made me smile.