It’s been another busy week of med school. It seems like they are intent on cramming as much into the final few weeks of term as possible. Last week was a packed week of community placements and hospital inductions which when combined with being massively unwell was not a week I’ve enjoyed.
My community placement was another trip back to my community base, where we presented case histories on our patients followed by a field trip to the Justice Centre in Leamington Spa. The justice center is the second of its kind. A building designed to have each element of the justice department in one building. The police cells, magistrate and crown court, youth justice services and probation.
The aim of the trip was to see how medical professionals have some involvement in the law court, mainly in the psychiatry specialism. It was interesting to witness a court case in the crown court and get an understanding of how medicine and law does interlink.
Wednesday was another trip back to Warwick Hospital for first aid training and induction to the hospital. For someone who has done so much first aid in all her life it was a long day for repetitive information, but it was nice to get certified again and be ready to get into the hospital in the new year.
By Thursday I was so ill it was unbelievable. Woke up so ill that I had to call it quits and have a sick day. Spent the day in bed and avoiding anyone who was making noise because my ears were ringing so badly. I used the time in bed to at least get up to date on the lectures and realised how behind I was on work and information. It’s definitely spurred me on to get going with the revision and the Christmas holiday catch up work.
Being unwell and having this genuine desire to continue working due to fear of being behind or this underlying belief that i must keep working really made me realise how much of a vow you take when you commit to medicine. You say ‘yes’ to giving up most of your life, your health and sanity to learning as much as you can about medicine and applying it to the people who need it. I think it was this realisation that really gave eat he boost back into productivity.
It led me really well into having a productive weekend. I am trying very hard to not spend a lot of money before x-mas and to get as much work done as I can. Coming up this week, the last official week, is only three lectures and a massive host of revision material before our Mock OSCEs next week. I am counting down until I can sleep for a whole day and feel slightly less bad about it.
abigailgrows 