The medical school and its pupils are decked in Christmas attire. There are trees, jumpers and reindeer headbands and the atmosphere has been mixed between exhaustion and excitement about the soon to be festive season… and now its here!
The Christmas Holidays!
It’s hard to believe that I have completed 40% of year 1 at medical school. Though it’s Christmas I am under no illusion that it will be a time for taking a break. I have a number of things to do this Christmas and I’ve only been home for 24 hours and the pre-work for next year is already online and begging to be completed!
I’ve also been sick in the last few days which hasn’t helped me get to productive in the last few days. It’s been an adventure; had my first experience of 111 and ended up in a walk in centre at 1 in the morning. But felt much better afterwards and I am feeling much more human in the last day or so. I’m getting incredibly tired easily but the emergency inhaler I was given to help my breathlessness has given me a helping hand with getting back onto the horse of medical school.
My first term of medical school has been a huge lesson; not only in medical information but personal learning. I’ve learnt that in order to keep motivated and prevent procrastination I need to keep working and always make an attempt to be a tiny bit ahead of the teaching. So I am using Christmas as a chance to get my revision for blocks 1 and 2, whilst doing the pre-reading and the first lectures of block 3 – it’s infamous for being extremely hard.
I’ve mentioned in many blog posts before this about the mentality that you develop at medical school; that if you are behind or take a break you feel bad for doing so. So I wanted to end the term on a good note; be up to date if not ahead of myself so that I didn’t end the term feeling like Christmas was going to have to be completely about work. I was fortunate enough to end like this and as such and so I am not feeling as stressed about getting work done as I though I would.
I am looking forward to going back in January, and we start early, as there is more clinical teaching and we are finally getting into our bedside teaching sessions and patient interaction!
abigailgrows 