I’ve just finished my first 7 week rotation of third year, and it has flown by! Starting off the year on the Women and children rotation has been very busy. But I’m so glad to have had this rotation first. For the paediatrics part, I was based in Barrow which sadly meant having to get the barrow bus again! Even though the journey was a pain, being on the children’s ward made up for it. To be honest, it was very daunting at first as it’s a completely different environment to the ward placements we had in 2nd year. However, all the doctors and nurses were so helpful in helping us settle into the ward. The rotation consisted mainly of ward rounds in the morning, which was great as it allowed me to introduce ourselves to patient’s and their families. During the ward rounds, I got to see some really interesting cases such as Kabuki syndrome (which is very rare!) and Juvenile arthritis. Then in the afternoon, I would either take a history or attend clinics, such as the nephrologist and blood clinics.
One of the things that really struck me during my time on Paeds is the wide age-range of patients that were treated. When in clinic, we saw one patient who was 10 months old and then the next patient was a 16 year old boy! It was so interesting to see the difference in communication between doctors and their patients, as many patients were so young that they couldn’t tell the doctors what was wrong with them. This taught me the importance of taking a ‘collateral history’ and interacting with the parents of the child. My favourite part of my Paeds rotation was being able to carry out a new born infant physical examination.
Thankfully for Obs&Gynae, I was based in Lancaster and I learnt soooo much in a relatively small amount of time. We had to learn new clinical skills such as examining the pregnant abdomen and speculum examinations. As well as learning these new skills, there were plenty of opportunities to practice. Most of the rotation was timetabled for us which made things a lot easier and it meant that our days were pretty packed! Every day in O&G was completely different and I think that’s one of the reasons why I loved the rotation so much. I got to sit in on a wide range of clinics such as hysteroscopy, antenatal clinic and gynaecology outpatients. In addition, we were given the chance to shadow one of the doctors during their on-call shift. I really enjoyed this as it allowed us to see the range of patient’s that presented into hospital, and how patients from the community were referred to the wards.
During my rotation, I got to spend a lot time on labour ward and I even did a night shift! My night shift consisted of snacking and endless cups of tea in between seeing patients. It was such an amazing experience being able to monitor a woman through her labour. I really enjoyed helping the midwife complete a partogram (graphical record of labour) and building up a relationship with the mother was so important. In addition, I got to scrub in to C-sections and assist the surgeons. This was personally my favourite moment of the rotation and it’ll be something that I never forget.
I’m currently working on my SSM which is focused on the use of High-flow oxygen in ICU (very different to my rotation!). It’s nice to have some down-time and more self-directed learning. But I’ll be ready to get back into things by the time my GP rotation comes around.
Salma Mahmoud, 3rd Year Medical student