Welcome back to Med School and the first week of block 5!
After spending our four-week easter break revision pretty hard, except for my missing week that I don’t talk about. It is nice yet stressful to be back in the lecture halls and learning some new stuff. Despite being back in the lecture theatre, the next two weeks are going to be extremely tough. Block five is our child and adolescent development section where we follow a family through all the stages of reproductive health. Due to the location of our easter break and the countdown to exams the first two weeks are front-loaded in order to give us some space towards exams to revise. Whilst I love the idea in theory, currently I am having to go on some long walks or read a book for an hour in the evening to get some brain space.
The first day of the block we were given a little gift; a little red book. These are the books given to babies at birth and follow their early development. We are using them as teaching aids and I’ve really enjoyed having one to refer to and we have been filling them in to get used to using the paper work. I think this was a great learning experience and a resource that is little out of the box; it captured all our interests.
Being back this block the entire medical school has a different atmosphere. It’s the final countdown and inevitably everyone is feeling the anxiety and the stress. As such there is a massive change in the atmosphere at the medical school. I personally have found the change in the environment quite calming; the easiest way to describe this is that everyone is stressed and concerned about passing end of years… but equally every is aware that we are all in this together. It’s made it easier to talk to people but it has also contributed to people changing their attitudes towards helping each other out. This is what was needed right at the start! At least we got there in the end.
I am incredibly busy at the moment and this week has been no exception. The vast amount of lecture content needed exploring and condensing, let alone the other three blocks need revising. I also had a little visit from Casper the pup and that was really nice to have; I felt so happy having him here for those few short days and I really needed that. With it being the easter weekend the week was so much shorter, no eight am Friday hospital deadline was lovely and gave me a full day to do some academic work before I got to work all weekend.
Oh yeah, I got a job! It was part of my life crisis I went through a few weeks ago (also known as my missing week). I realised that a small amount of work was needed to give me some more independence and get out of med school vibes for at least a few hours. Though it being a healthcare related job has helped me feel less negative about taking time away from revising… its networking and clinical practise… that’s what I am telling myself anyway.
I did take a time out to go climbing this week. The new Warwick wellness building is open and I went out and had a great time at the new climbing wall. Definitely need to go back more often and have some more fun, especially now all the routes are new. Have noticed though that its super hard to find the time to climb and I definitely need to invest in some kit if I am going to do it more often.
Next week, we have the day off at least for bank holiday Monday which I am hoping to utilise to do a good revision sesh… hopefully with chocolate or cake (or both!). Then lectures and our first anatomy and clinical skills session of the term. It is definitely time to kick myself into action and start putting some real effort into exam prep over revision. I need to be reminding myself that it’s all about answering those exam questions; as much as understanding and expanding my medical knowledge, I need to focus on the basics before I delve into the world of research papers and fun stuff.
abigailgrows 