I’m 6 weeks into medical school, and I still can’t work out if it feels like six years already, or just 6 days. The weeks here are full and pass so quickly; fresher’s feels as though it was a lifetime ago, and life before medical school is a distant memory. What I expected before being here is blurred with the reality of it, although I don’t think I expected to settle in as quickly as I did. This is largely due to being thrown into the routine of medical school with very little time to adjust, but that suited me just fine. Between lectures, PBL sessions, CALC, and clinical skills I rarely find time to be homesick. Besides, I’m at medical school which is something that felt like an unachievable dream for a long time, and now it’s a reality. I constantly remind myself of that every time my work load feels insurmountable, every time I miss home, and every time I doubt myself. Being here is a privilege that I earnt, and I have no intention of taking it for granted.

   Medical school is a lot of fun, and that came as a surprise as well. You hear all sorts of horror stories from friends and family about the hours, the stress, and how if you want the privilege of learning how to save someone’s life, you must first give up your own. In first year at least, this is not true. Yes the hours are long, and yes it’s stressful and we have to work hard, but we play hard too. I’m extremely lucky as I live with three other medics (almost unheard of in first year), so I have a built-in support/study group, but even if I didn’t, the medical school make sure you don’t feel on your own. MedSoc organises socials and balls to help you get to know your cohort, and the rest of the medical school. We were also assigned year 2 and 4 ‘medic parents’ before arriving, who are a great source of reassurance and perspective. There’s a lot of group work involved in medicine as well so you get to know each other quickly; it’s hard to be shy after listening to each other’s abdomen for bowel sounds!

   The PBL curriculum has been one of the biggest adjustments from A-levels to medical school. We self-teach a lot of what we need to know, supplemented by CALC and our lectures. We’re all slowly getting better at using the resources and knowing what depth to go into, but it’s new to all of us so we’re all in the same boat. The feedback sessions are by far the most enjoyable part; it’s a fairly relaxed environment where we can consolidate and share our knowledge. CALC is a more familiar method of learning that involves small group anatomy and histology teaching and is a huge help. My favourite part of the week by far though is clinical, where we learn clinical skills and practise them on each other. Because of the nature of medicine, we have lectures on biomedicine, psychology, sociology, and some law. This is all interesting, but clinical is where I really feel like I’m training to be a doctor.

   However long or short the last six weeks have felt, they’ve definitely been the most intense and exciting 6 weeks of my life a place I’m very happy to be in and with people I’m very happy to be with.

Rachael Dibble – Year 1 Medical Student

Hearing my alarm at 6am on Wednesday 5^th September put a brutal end to 8 weeks of bliss, relaxation and that British heatwave. On the third day of Year 2, I found myself standing at the ward reception, wearing new clothes, my logbook in my left hand, my stethoscope in my right (as I know the risk of putting it around my neck!) and I felt like a lost fish in the sea. My clinical partner and I got it together and introduced ourselves to the nurse at the desk.  

This is the great part about Blackburn Hospital, all the staff are so kind and made me feel very welcome on the ward. Once the doctors learnt I was only year 2 so therefore had minimal clinical knowledge (and was not trained to insert a cannula), the only way was up. Following ward rounds were so informative- seeing the consultants interact with the patients and have the FY1’s almost running after them like puppies with the computer trolley containing all the test results. I learnt a lot from the consultants who took 5 minutes before each patient to explain all the medical jargon that I would be using myself someday.

 It’s very entertaining following the doctors around and having patients mistake you for one of them. However, I did get a good reality check, not just from the new beige scrubs given to us two weeks in, but from being face-to-face with a patient I have to take a history from…and examine! Yes, this was the part of the hospital placement that I was actually trained to do throughout all of year 1, but it is very different talking to an actor and talking to a real patient. Luckily, a lot of the patients I spoke to already knew their diagnosis (less work for me) and thanks to the history-taking template, I was able to fill in all the gaps in between. History taking happens in 5 steps:

Step 1: Ask the doctor for an appropriate patient to talk to (preferably one that does not need to leave in 5 minutes for an X-ray)

Step 2: get informed consent from the patient and take the history

Step 3: verbally present to the doctor

Step 4: do a physical examination on the patient (if they haven’t fallen asleep!)

 Last but not least, ‘can you sign my logbook?’ The phrase most likely asked more than ‘how long till lunch?’ throughout my 10 weeks at Blackburn. The logbook has baffled many doctors, but it is our only means of progress. Unbeknown to them, they make our week if they tick ‘Year 2 standard’.

As I approach the end of my first hospital rotation, I am starting to realise just how much I have enjoyed having 2 days a week in a hospital setting. Despite the early start, being exposed to the hospital atmosphere has reminded me of why I chose to do medicine. Plus, seeing the sunrise isn’t all bad!

Daniella Farquhar – Year 2 Medical Student

On the last day in the seventh completed week of my Paediatric rotation, I got a cold. Safe to say, I did well to accomplish twenty-seven days surrounded by snotty children without getting one until the final day, day twenty-eight. It was my first SAMP and yes, I chose to be surrounded by children, and what a rotation it has been. Amongst the many, many wheezers, I have seen some incredible, unique, and heart-breaking cases. I worked within the Royal Blackburn Hospital, a much larger facility than the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. There, I saw more depravity, safeguarding concerns, and cases of consanguinity and subsequent genetic deformities than I had ever seen before.

Thankfully, I was not defecated or vomited on a single time during my placement. I did, however, have bricks thrown at my head by a young boy with Autism, lose hearing in my left ear for an entire afternoon after a particularly unhappy boy screamed in it whilst I assisted with venipuncture, and witnessed one mischievous young girl smear a suspiciously brown substance all over the floor (which was later discovered to be chocolate ice cream – thank goodness).

While spending time in the Children’s department in Blackburn, I also ventured to the Neonatal department in Burnley. I saw assisted births and newborns struggling to take their first breaths. It was a mixture of health versus sickness; I examined fit babies but also tiny, premature neonates in their extraterrestrial looking incubators.

The two hardest parts of this rotation were:
a) Commuting every day and the nightmares of rush hour and,
b) Leaving – this was really quite sad.

This rotation was the first one where I actually felt part of a team, respected and appreciated. A place where everyone knew my name (and I wasn’t just ‘medical student’). Here, I could actually use my knowledge and skills to help patients and staff alike. I wasn’t just taking, I was able to give back.

So, here I am, first rotation down and my parents ask how am I finding fifth year compared to fourth? Well, the difference between the two is utterly incredible.

Fourth year was finals year, by far the most difficult of all five. There was more work demanding my time and my social life disintegrated into nothingness. This year has been bliss, so far. Our timetables are more flexible, we have less pressure yet more responsibility, and much more autonomy. Fifth year is the ideal time to explore the Lake District, actually do things with your friends (because group revision does not count as socialising), visit your family, try new things like dancing (shout-out to Lancs Salsa Soc), make your CVs ready for FY1 application (which admittedly comes much sooner than expected), and explore a few cities or countries, even. If you’re a fourth year already panicking about finals, I urge you to think of fifth year as your light at the end of the tunnel. You will love it; you just have a few hurdles to jump first.

 And so, with this piece of reflection work completed, (which took significantly less time to do than the 10,000 reflections needed for the Log Books), I will now enjoy a quick trip home and look forward to my next rotation in GP.

Cheska Ball – 5th Year Medical Student

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 2^nd 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