Merry Boxing Day, one and all.
I sit here on the sofa, breathing in the germs of my sickened mother and enjoying the warmth of the log burning stove as my brother photoshops pictures of us snowboarding (more on that to follow) and I think 'Oh No! What of all my blog reading compadres?! How will they have survived this long holiday period without the lush oasis of humour and wit that is my blog?'. Well here is your answer people. On the 2nd day of Chreestmas your true love wrote for you. A blog entry that doesn't rhyme.
News since the last blog?
Well the MINI arrived in all it's lesser sized glory. It is most beautiful and most fun to drive. It keeps me happy daily with thoughtful innovations that the Germans must have added during it's reincarnation from the original mini, such as brakes and steering but, mainly, it has a key-fob thing that you slid into the dashboard and a 'Stop/Start' button. A BUTTON! How awesome is that?! None of that obsolete key turning action for me, oh no, I just pushy pushy and it starty starty. Worth 14 THOUSAND POUNDS any day.
I still have no 3rd housemate, so life on the streets is looking ever more likely. Still at least I'm not like Ben Gray who is making an ill-advised move to the death-rink that is St Anne's in Nottingham in order to actually experience the suffering of the poor and drug dependant. I cannot decide whether to find this very noble or very stupid and I am inclined to go for the latter as he is likely to try cheering up the locals by an impromptu acoustic guitar set featuring songs such as 'God Loves you, so your shit lives aren't so bad' and 'We are all god's children, what I have is also yours'.
I'm taking bets as to how long it will take him to be killed and by which method. Though I do hope he isn't as his heart is in the right place, he's just deluded into believing in a higher power. And that happens to the best of people.
Though never me, never.
My last week in Nottingham was frantic and full of concerts. I had the Nottingham Arts Theatre Singers (Good Vibrations) concert first. Now the problems with the Nottingham Arts Theatre Singers (Good Vibrations) concert were multifactorial but included
1. Originally around 60 people (58 more than turned up to Songs For A New World) turned up to rehearsal, by the end there were about 6 and one of those was inside a uterus.
2. Due to the open nature of the group all levels of talent are allowed to join. Good for the community, bad for your ears.
3. Neither Nathan or I or the band had any time to rehearse before the concert and so we had no idea what we were doing.
4. Nathan, due probably to being a huge gay, hadn't procured any music for said band during the concert so they all had to read over my shoulder
5. There were grumpy old ladies in the audience who kept asking us questions like 'When are we starting, it's too crowded', 'Why is that guitarist so welsh' and 'What is pi to 45 digits'. I ended up getting grouchy with them and telling to 'go die already like your body wants you to'.
6. At no point did they sing 'Good Vibrations' or even make an attempt to.
Then there was the Note-ability concert.
Good points:
They are a very talented group and are very nice people too.
I got a swig of brandy in the interval.
They paid me money and gave me wine.
They sang an excellent variety of music to an amazing standard.
The conductor was a MILF.
Bad Points:
I suck at playing the piano.
They knew this.
It was embarrassing.
and finally the AGF Christmas. Thing.
We had basically no rehearsal for this but the organisers had shipped in some professional singers (a daughter of one and her friends) and so the quality of singing was brilliant! Furthermore I got to play 'You Got The Love' the 90s dance classic and it was awesome. However the last day was stressful due to losing my sustain pedal and having no keys to my house and no way to get to my house until around 15 minute before the concert. Sadly during the concert the stage light was shining directly INTO MY FACE so all i could see was the music on the BACK of the piece of paper I was looking at and I consequently sucked. Again.
So alot of sucking happened.
Fun times have been had since I returned to Debden for Christmassy fun. MacDuff! and Sam also came down for a few days and we went sledging and snowboarding out on one of the hills. I received several painful bruises and my nose has started bleeding every night, perhaps as a subtle hint that active sport is not for me. Nevertheless I decree that I should spend all my remaining savings (£2.50) on a skiing holiday this year so that I can learn to steer and then impress all the locals next year.
We also had a round of Betterwizzer, the worlds most complicated board game, that isn't really complicated at all but the instructions are written in 4pt font and took up a sheet of paper the size of Britain's national debt. In the 2,345 words of instructions only around 3 rules are outlined but it takes so long to read them that most people have given up on the whole idea of a board game and are attacking the brandy in the cabinet before you understand how to play. The best thing about this game is that Sam lost, and as Sam has never failed at anything in his entire life this made me feel better about myself. All I need now is for Dave to fail to attract a girl and it'll be like I'm not the biggest noob in the house.
Sadly that will never happen.
As for christmas day I got little sleep the night before because my brother had got pissed up down the local pub on 5% beer and ended up being sick in all corners of the house. Fortunately my gifts of socks, socks, socks, socks, 2 jumpers and £20,000 worth of Blu-Ray disks from MacDuff! soon woke me up and I was raring to go and start peeling potatoes at mum's boyfriends house. 4kg of peeled potatoes later we headed up to the lucks for Janebrøt and salmon. This is where the day started to go wrong; ordinarilly I'd gave about 4 glasses of champagne at the Lucks and then head to the pub and drink about 5 girly cocktails and then be sloshed for the christmas dinner where the inane banter of our respective families turnes into golden nougats of hilarity. For some reason, however, I remained sober this time and was pretty much ready to head off to bed at 2 in the afternoon out of a combination of no sleep and boredom.
Still, there was lots of food and food is good, as you can tell by the number of o's in there.
And that's more or less it.
Tomorrow: Off to Iains with the lovely Richard and lovelier (if that were possible) Aimee Hall then back to Nottingham for sitting alone in the cold with no food for 3 days before returning to Iains.
Speak soooooon.
Merry Christmaaaaas
xxxxxxxxxx
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Exams
For once I'm not going to use Backstreet's Back to say hello. Instead I shall use the opening from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Geoff.
The Final Frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.
It's continuing mission to find, brave, new, worlds.
To seek out new life and new civilisations.
To boldly go where no-one has gone before.
Now, I defy anyone to admit they are geeky enough to know the real origin of that intro. Post here and forever remain single.
Soooo exams.
Paediatrics MCQ:
Question 1:
Jean Defect is a 2 year old child who is admitted with persistent productive cough, she is growing on the 25th centile (having dropped over the last several months from the 75th centile) and has a chlorine smell about her. Her birth was uneventful but she failed to pass meconium within 24 hours.
On what chromosome (1-22) is her likely defect:
Chromosome F
Chromosome U
Chromosome C
Chromosome K
Chromosome YOUMEDICALSTUDENTSCUM
(Select no more than 3 chromosomes)
Assuming that she has Acute Intermittant Porphyria on a background of Type II diabetes compounded by Sickle Cell, Spherocytotic beta-Thallasaemia, outline the 4 tests you would have performed 3 years ago on her mother during her 1st antenatal visit (not including prenatal scans or midwife visits) from the following list.
FBC
FBC (including Full Blood Count)
FBC (including a Count of Full Blood)
LFT
TFT
Plasma Screen
anti-streptolysin O antibodies
antiendomesial antibodies
endoantimesial antibodies
eostradiol
eastrodial
Remember that you must select at least 2 options from list A and 3 from list a, those options in list B are for reference only and must only be chosen when you are being assessed on module A1OG2FGH (Medicine with Honours but without Honour) and not module A10G2FGh (Medicine with an Honus on Honours)
Question 2:
Remember that thing Will Carroll told you about?
Yea, that thing.
What is it associated with?
Tachycardia
Tachapnoea
Bradycardia
Atrioventricular Septal Defect
Ventriculoatrioalr Septal Defect
Coronory Artery Aneurisms
Spain
AIDS
Benzene
Multifocalpolyleukoencepalopathy
Your Mum
Now those of you who listen to my whinging will know that I didn't do as well as I wanted to in my Paeds OSLER. So we won't mention that, except that I'm particularly wounded because i painted sticks pretty colours for the, presumably young and cute child to play with while I listened to his/her chest.
The kid was 13. The only thing he wants to play with is tucked away in his pants.
Further upset was caused by the attempts by the examiners to cheer me up
"I did even WORSE in my OSLER"
"You know, it's just a mark, if I was interviewing you for a job I might consider, maybe, you know, if there were no other candidates, and I had developed dementia as a result of quaternary syphilis, then there is a chance, though small, that I'd give you the job. Maybe"
"I'd be very disappointed in you if you gave up medicine forever after this. Because this is just the first one of a whole series of harsh blows you're going to get throughout your career"
And others...
But hey, I passed, and that's all that matters I suppose.
As for Obs & Gynae, well, the exam I definitely didn't excel on:
Question 1:
This woman has pre-eclampsia.
OR DOES SHE?
You tell me
True
False
Question 2:
What is the incidence of peanut butter phobia in pregnant women who largely eat celery but have the odd glass of wine on the weekend?
1.2 in 100,000
1.21 in 100,000
1.3 in 100,000
1.2 in 1*10^5
Pi
Still, these values were in the textbooks and, if it hadn't been for the Nugent & Burnhill patented revision through playing computer games/decorating trees/drinking tea campain, I may have known my stuff better.
Finally we had the OSCE today.
The OSCE consists of 4 stations, 2 where you take a history from a patient and 2 where you discuss stuff with a patient.
We had to be at the QMC for 8:30 in the morning so that we could be herded into a tiny room in order to sufficiently undermine each other's confidence before the exam began at 9:00 (for some of us, others were left waiting around practically forever). You get 6 minutes to prepare what you're going to say, having read the scenario and then 6 minutes to say it.
This was fine (ish) for the majority of the stations, except that we had to counsel people about a pre-cancerous disease - 'So I have cancer?', 'no, you don't but you might end up with...', 'Oh my god I'm going to die', 'Well, everyone dies, Madam, but your time is yet to co', 'Well what am I gonna do? WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO'. However the real problem came around with Mrs Pre Eclampsia
'Hi Is that Ms Eclampsia?'
'Yes'
'Hi, My name is Geoff Burnhill, I'm a 4th Year Medical Student here and I was wondering if I could counsel you about this illness. I ask only because I will otherwise fail my exam for not obtaining full consent to FRIKKING TALK TO YOU, despite the fact it makes ABSOLUTELY NO FU*KING SENSE IN THIS SITUATION...
..FURTHERMORE WHY THE HELL WOULD A MEDICAL STUDENT COUNSEL YOU ABOUT PRE-ECLAMPSIA, SURELY THAT'S THE JOB OF A REAL F*CKING DOCTOR'
*cough*
'Yes that's fine, if it wasn't fine you'd be somewhat screwed wouldn't you?'
'OK so do you know why you're here'
'Yes the midwife sent me here with no detail or anything'
'I see, well, she sent you in because you have (imagine, if you will, the camera zooming further into her face on each symptom)
High Blood Pressure (DUN DUN DUN)
Proteinuria (DUN DUN DUN)
and Mild Epigastric tenderness (DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN)
and these are indicative of what we like to call 'Pre-eclampsia''
'What's that then?'
'It's a systemic disorder characterised by your symptoms that occurs due to incomplete 2nd migration of the embryonic trophoblast causing placental insufficiency and the formation of an inflammatory response' is what I wanted to say because as soon as I said 'It's when your placenta gets in trouble and causes a reactive response in your body', the examiner started scribbling 'FAIL' in large letters on my marksheet. He then drew gallows next to it, with an uncanny cartoon of myself hanging.
'I see, so what are you going to do about it'
'Well, we have to admit you to hospital'
'Sorry what?'
'Admit you. To Hospital'
'WHAT?!?!?!, BUT BUT BUT BUT When?'
'Well, like now.'
'BUT BUT I CAN'T; MY SALON'
'Your salon?'
'YES I NEED TO RUN MY SALON'
'Your salon?'
'My salon!'
'I see, well anyway when you get into hospital, we'll need to give you oral steroids to help your babies developing lu-'
'Well can I not just go home and come back if I feel ill?'
'No, because you'll die'
'But my Salon'
'Sorry I said you'll die'
'my Salo-'
'SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR F*CKING SALON YOU STUPID COW, YOU ARE GOING. TO. DIE. WHO'S GONNA RUN THE SALON WHEN YOU'RE DEAD. YOU'RE DEAD CHILD? No, because HE'LL BE DEAD TOO! NOW GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF *slap slap*'
'OK OK so I need to come in, what will happen when i'm in hospital'
'Well as I was saying, we need to help your developing baby by-'
'Oh my god it sounds like I'm going to be in prison'
'No, no, not at all, it's just tha-'
--TIME IS UP, WE HOPE YOU DISCUSSED TREATMENT OPTIONS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A CAESARIAN SECTION WITH THEM--
Anyway the exams are now over. I was looking forward to celebrating with voluminous alcohol but was instead granted GASTRIC FLU for my troubles.
Thanks, Jesus, you've always got my back.
In other news:
The search for the 3rd housemate continues.
I sent what I like to think of as a HILARIOUS mass e-mail to everyone in the entire medical school detailing the amazingness of our house and the relative cheapness of the rent. I immediately received 10 responses!
This excited me.
Every one of them read. 'Hahaha, you are so funny. But no, I'd rather die in the fires of hell than live with you. You punk.' more or less.
I have now resorted to advertising it to people in the real world. But they are apparently not content with sharing a bathroom and so I shall be doomed to live on the street, with great furniture and a piano. Let's hope it's never cold or raining in britain.
B'oh!
The wait for my new MINI continues.
I had an exciting call today from the MINI Man (did I mention I ordered a MINI, well I did) and I have got the registration of it already! It ends in WCK (for WarwiCK, I like to think) I also had the choice of WCC and, WDC. WDC being Dr Carrolls initials, I was almost tempted to get it as an act of sycophantic wondery. Sadly it would remind me that I SUCK AT THE ONLY THING I LOVE (no innuendo implied) so I went with Warwick, when I was good at stuff.
The hunt for the red october.
Is a film.
I now have 700 gigs in the next 2 weeks.
Woo, you might say? Well no as I'm getting paid for NONE OF THEM. Which is fine because I'm a wonderful, giving, kind person. Except that Nottingham Lace Market Theatre are a bunch of FECKING UNGRATEFUL TWATS and, despite me giving up two nights a week for their rehearsals and lending them my keyboard, they still get pissy with me for not recording their individual vocal lines onto CD for them (in my no spare time, with my no copy of the score) and then proceed to get even pissier when I can't do early Sunday morning rehearsals
1. I need sleep
2. I'm getting back from London late on Saturday
3. I hate you
4. I hate you
5. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
*Sigh*
Still, it'll all be over soon as the wonderful wonderful Christmas Holidays are coming up. Sadly I have to learn ALL OF OPTHALMOLOGY by then and buy lots of presents for everyone. I am of the opinion that everyone should get 'The knowledge that Geoff has a shiny new car' as their christmas present. But apparently this isn't on.
Hmph.
What else?
Oh yea, Dave moved into our tiny tiny 3rd room, barely big enough for his enormous talent and it is excellent. For me, at least. He is probably going nuts and wishing he was back in his old house with all the mould and the housemate who leaves bits of flaky skin on the toilet seat when she goes for a pee. The only downside is that I have eaten a million kilos more of fat than I normally would and as I do NO EXCERCISE and he does ALL THE EXERCISE this can only end badly for me.
Hmmm, what a negative blog. Meeeee, negative??? Never :)
Thus we well end on something positive:
The relative charge on a carbonyl carbon.
HOHOHOHOHO AREN'T I FUNNY!!!
OK um...
we have a christmas tree now and it's pretty.
That'll do.
Byeeeeeeeeeeeee
Geoff.
The Final Frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.
It's continuing mission to find, brave, new, worlds.
To seek out new life and new civilisations.
To boldly go where no-one has gone before.
Now, I defy anyone to admit they are geeky enough to know the real origin of that intro. Post here and forever remain single.
Soooo exams.
Paediatrics MCQ:
Question 1:
Jean Defect is a 2 year old child who is admitted with persistent productive cough, she is growing on the 25th centile (having dropped over the last several months from the 75th centile) and has a chlorine smell about her. Her birth was uneventful but she failed to pass meconium within 24 hours.
On what chromosome (1-22) is her likely defect:
Chromosome F
Chromosome U
Chromosome C
Chromosome K
Chromosome YOUMEDICALSTUDENTSCUM
(Select no more than 3 chromosomes)
Assuming that she has Acute Intermittant Porphyria on a background of Type II diabetes compounded by Sickle Cell, Spherocytotic beta-Thallasaemia, outline the 4 tests you would have performed 3 years ago on her mother during her 1st antenatal visit (not including prenatal scans or midwife visits) from the following list.
FBC
FBC (including Full Blood Count)
FBC (including a Count of Full Blood)
LFT
TFT
Plasma Screen
anti-streptolysin O antibodies
antiendomesial antibodies
endoantimesial antibodies
eostradiol
eastrodial
Remember that you must select at least 2 options from list A and 3 from list a, those options in list B are for reference only and must only be chosen when you are being assessed on module A1OG2FGH (Medicine with Honours but without Honour) and not module A10G2FGh (Medicine with an Honus on Honours)
Question 2:
Remember that thing Will Carroll told you about?
Yea, that thing.
What is it associated with?
Tachycardia
Tachapnoea
Bradycardia
Atrioventricular Septal Defect
Ventriculoatrioalr Septal Defect
Coronory Artery Aneurisms
Spain
AIDS
Benzene
Multifocalpolyleukoencepalopathy
Your Mum
Now those of you who listen to my whinging will know that I didn't do as well as I wanted to in my Paeds OSLER. So we won't mention that, except that I'm particularly wounded because i painted sticks pretty colours for the, presumably young and cute child to play with while I listened to his/her chest.
The kid was 13. The only thing he wants to play with is tucked away in his pants.
Further upset was caused by the attempts by the examiners to cheer me up
"I did even WORSE in my OSLER"
"You know, it's just a mark, if I was interviewing you for a job I might consider, maybe, you know, if there were no other candidates, and I had developed dementia as a result of quaternary syphilis, then there is a chance, though small, that I'd give you the job. Maybe"
"I'd be very disappointed in you if you gave up medicine forever after this. Because this is just the first one of a whole series of harsh blows you're going to get throughout your career"
And others...
But hey, I passed, and that's all that matters I suppose.
As for Obs & Gynae, well, the exam I definitely didn't excel on:
Question 1:
This woman has pre-eclampsia.
OR DOES SHE?
You tell me
True
False
Question 2:
What is the incidence of peanut butter phobia in pregnant women who largely eat celery but have the odd glass of wine on the weekend?
1.2 in 100,000
1.21 in 100,000
1.3 in 100,000
1.2 in 1*10^5
Pi
Still, these values were in the textbooks and, if it hadn't been for the Nugent & Burnhill patented revision through playing computer games/decorating trees/drinking tea campain, I may have known my stuff better.
Finally we had the OSCE today.
The OSCE consists of 4 stations, 2 where you take a history from a patient and 2 where you discuss stuff with a patient.
We had to be at the QMC for 8:30 in the morning so that we could be herded into a tiny room in order to sufficiently undermine each other's confidence before the exam began at 9:00 (for some of us, others were left waiting around practically forever). You get 6 minutes to prepare what you're going to say, having read the scenario and then 6 minutes to say it.
This was fine (ish) for the majority of the stations, except that we had to counsel people about a pre-cancerous disease - 'So I have cancer?', 'no, you don't but you might end up with...', 'Oh my god I'm going to die', 'Well, everyone dies, Madam, but your time is yet to co', 'Well what am I gonna do? WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO'. However the real problem came around with Mrs Pre Eclampsia
'Hi Is that Ms Eclampsia?'
'Yes'
'Hi, My name is Geoff Burnhill, I'm a 4th Year Medical Student here and I was wondering if I could counsel you about this illness. I ask only because I will otherwise fail my exam for not obtaining full consent to FRIKKING TALK TO YOU, despite the fact it makes ABSOLUTELY NO FU*KING SENSE IN THIS SITUATION...
..FURTHERMORE WHY THE HELL WOULD A MEDICAL STUDENT COUNSEL YOU ABOUT PRE-ECLAMPSIA, SURELY THAT'S THE JOB OF A REAL F*CKING DOCTOR'
*cough*
'Yes that's fine, if it wasn't fine you'd be somewhat screwed wouldn't you?'
'OK so do you know why you're here'
'Yes the midwife sent me here with no detail or anything'
'I see, well, she sent you in because you have (imagine, if you will, the camera zooming further into her face on each symptom)
High Blood Pressure (DUN DUN DUN)
Proteinuria (DUN DUN DUN)
and Mild Epigastric tenderness (DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN)
and these are indicative of what we like to call 'Pre-eclampsia''
'What's that then?'
'It's a systemic disorder characterised by your symptoms that occurs due to incomplete 2nd migration of the embryonic trophoblast causing placental insufficiency and the formation of an inflammatory response' is what I wanted to say because as soon as I said 'It's when your placenta gets in trouble and causes a reactive response in your body', the examiner started scribbling 'FAIL' in large letters on my marksheet. He then drew gallows next to it, with an uncanny cartoon of myself hanging.
'I see, so what are you going to do about it'
'Well, we have to admit you to hospital'
'Sorry what?'
'Admit you. To Hospital'
'WHAT?!?!?!, BUT BUT BUT BUT When?'
'Well, like now.'
'BUT BUT I CAN'T; MY SALON'
'Your salon?'
'YES I NEED TO RUN MY SALON'
'Your salon?'
'My salon!'
'I see, well anyway when you get into hospital, we'll need to give you oral steroids to help your babies developing lu-'
'Well can I not just go home and come back if I feel ill?'
'No, because you'll die'
'But my Salon'
'Sorry I said you'll die'
'my Salo-'
'SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR F*CKING SALON YOU STUPID COW, YOU ARE GOING. TO. DIE. WHO'S GONNA RUN THE SALON WHEN YOU'RE DEAD. YOU'RE DEAD CHILD? No, because HE'LL BE DEAD TOO! NOW GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF *slap slap*'
'OK OK so I need to come in, what will happen when i'm in hospital'
'Well as I was saying, we need to help your developing baby by-'
'Oh my god it sounds like I'm going to be in prison'
'No, no, not at all, it's just tha-'
--TIME IS UP, WE HOPE YOU DISCUSSED TREATMENT OPTIONS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A CAESARIAN SECTION WITH THEM--
Anyway the exams are now over. I was looking forward to celebrating with voluminous alcohol but was instead granted GASTRIC FLU for my troubles.
Thanks, Jesus, you've always got my back.
In other news:
The search for the 3rd housemate continues.
I sent what I like to think of as a HILARIOUS mass e-mail to everyone in the entire medical school detailing the amazingness of our house and the relative cheapness of the rent. I immediately received 10 responses!
This excited me.
Every one of them read. 'Hahaha, you are so funny. But no, I'd rather die in the fires of hell than live with you. You punk.' more or less.
I have now resorted to advertising it to people in the real world. But they are apparently not content with sharing a bathroom and so I shall be doomed to live on the street, with great furniture and a piano. Let's hope it's never cold or raining in britain.
B'oh!
The wait for my new MINI continues.
I had an exciting call today from the MINI Man (did I mention I ordered a MINI, well I did) and I have got the registration of it already! It ends in WCK (for WarwiCK, I like to think) I also had the choice of WCC and, WDC. WDC being Dr Carrolls initials, I was almost tempted to get it as an act of sycophantic wondery. Sadly it would remind me that I SUCK AT THE ONLY THING I LOVE (no innuendo implied) so I went with Warwick, when I was good at stuff.
The hunt for the red october.
Is a film.
I now have 700 gigs in the next 2 weeks.
Woo, you might say? Well no as I'm getting paid for NONE OF THEM. Which is fine because I'm a wonderful, giving, kind person. Except that Nottingham Lace Market Theatre are a bunch of FECKING UNGRATEFUL TWATS and, despite me giving up two nights a week for their rehearsals and lending them my keyboard, they still get pissy with me for not recording their individual vocal lines onto CD for them (in my no spare time, with my no copy of the score) and then proceed to get even pissier when I can't do early Sunday morning rehearsals
1. I need sleep
2. I'm getting back from London late on Saturday
3. I hate you
4. I hate you
5. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
*Sigh*
Still, it'll all be over soon as the wonderful wonderful Christmas Holidays are coming up. Sadly I have to learn ALL OF OPTHALMOLOGY by then and buy lots of presents for everyone. I am of the opinion that everyone should get 'The knowledge that Geoff has a shiny new car' as their christmas present. But apparently this isn't on.
Hmph.
What else?
Oh yea, Dave moved into our tiny tiny 3rd room, barely big enough for his enormous talent and it is excellent. For me, at least. He is probably going nuts and wishing he was back in his old house with all the mould and the housemate who leaves bits of flaky skin on the toilet seat when she goes for a pee. The only downside is that I have eaten a million kilos more of fat than I normally would and as I do NO EXCERCISE and he does ALL THE EXERCISE this can only end badly for me.
Hmmm, what a negative blog. Meeeee, negative??? Never :)
Thus we well end on something positive:
The relative charge on a carbonyl carbon.
HOHOHOHOHO AREN'T I FUNNY!!!
OK um...
we have a christmas tree now and it's pretty.
That'll do.
Byeeeeeeeeeeeee
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Geoff is back, alright *MOW MOW MOW MOW MOW MOW MOW, MOW MOW MOW MOW*
Everyboooooody now,
Yea-eaaaaa,
Read my blogy now,
Yea-eaaaaa,
Everybooooody now,
Read my blogy right *mow mow mow mow mow mow*.
Etc...
Soooooooooo, it's been a while hasn't it. Sadly my life has been most full, most full of generally shitty things that have made me sad and frankly this blog is not the place to be sad. It's the place for FUNK.
And in the absence of funk, an attempt at witty satire about my medical studenty life will have to suffice.
So going back a muchos longos timos to Tommy, well what can I say? It's a terrible show, essentially, is what I have to say. However we did succeed in being conspicuously loud, with guitar amps the size of Sam's bank balance and a snare drum made entirely from a unique NASA-designed loudness creating polymer consisting of 3 parts CRACK and 6 parts SMACK. Unbeknownst to me, poor Samuel spent the first 6 nights being deafened by a speaker that, inexplicably, not only amplified exclusively the sounds from my keyboard but also amplified them to the high heavens. Unfortunately due to its position, WITHIN SAM'S VERY BRAIN, Sam could ONLY hear me and I could not hear me at all. This resulted in some dangerously loud piano playing and some dangerously loud drumming. Sadly for all, my piano playing is a load of gash and so I apologise now to all those that endured it.
On the plus side, I did get a huge STEINHOPFENSCHLOFFEN (which is my pseudo-German word for large glass recepticle for beer) as a present from the cast. On a further negative side, however, I also got THE PLAGUE as an additional present from the cast. The plague hit me on the Friday evening before the last performance as I sat around in the med school luncheon area and noticed that I was shaking dramatically and could no longer feel my hands. This swiftly progressed into a deeeep chesty cough with associated pericarditis, mucosal haemorrhage and, predictably, The AIDS. To make matters worse, the next day had a matinee performance, so I had to the prospect of sitting in a bleak orchestra pit all day, exuding mucous onto my keyboard, likely shorting it out and setting the whole theatre on fire.
Except that the theatre is helpfully made entirely of carcinagous asbestos.
Fortunately there exists such a thing, as Dr Carroll will tell you forever, as the placebo effect. I therefore went to boots at 1:59 (Matinee starting at 2:00) to purchase Placebo (a.k.a Beechams Cold & Flu, and Covonia cough mixture) and to pick up my life saving inhalers.
Knowing, of course, that I was in a rush, the pharmacist continued to chat to her previous customer about, I dunno, casual sex or some such, for around 20 minutes after I handed in my prescription and so the likelyhood was that I'd be late for the start of the show. I therefor ran through town, being hindered the whole way by a) my eosinophilic lungs and b) a matrix-esque promenade of people walking in the opposite direction, to the theatre in order to avoid anal rapage by Nathan.
When I arrived, however, I discovered that something important, such as the stage curtain, or maybe the doors of the theatre, had broken and so we sat around for another 40 minutes making idle chit chat about politically incorrect things such as the worthlessness of old grannies (which was, without our knowledge, being picked up by the microphones and broadcast to the old grannies in the audience) until the show started.
And that's all there is to say about Tommy really, boring hey? I won't mention 'the dark day' that happened during the week when every member of the band fell out with each other, largely due to the fact that I smacked a tennis ball in Hywel's face and that the guys left MacDuff! (Pam's name is always written as MacDuff!) standing around in the freezing cold for 40 minutes because they forgot to tell her about the court. Amusingly this did cause Hywel to smash his tennis raquet on the floor in a rage and leave it in a nearby bin. Guess you had to be there.
So paediatrics then? What's the deal there.
Well it's been really good actually. Yes i am now ill AGAIN thanks to the snot nosed brats, and I damn near lost the will to live after the 80th time that Dr Carroll told me I was wrong when I was definitely right but I still feel like this is the speciality for me.
Highlights have included:
Having a community paediatrician attachment in what I can only assume was an old abandoned mental asylum, with bars on the windows and white tiled walls. The consultation room was made entirely of pointy metal objects and unnecessarily child-accessible scolding hot water taps, perhaps installed to test the vigilance of parents. I was, as ever, exceedingly ill on this day so spent much of it seeking the warmth of radiators, microwave ovens and workmen's armpits so I learned more or less nothing except: Do not become a community paediatrician.
Finding out that one of my classmates decided to stick an epipen in his leg (for those of you who have not seen an epipen, the needle is FU*KING HUUUUUUGE and, in this case was dripping with adrenaline after Dr Carroll savagely injected a chair with it to demonstrate it's viciousness) without flinching and without ever giving an explanation.
Correcting the ever-correct Dr Carroll on his knowledge of the mode of action of penicillin and then again on his knowledge of the action of macrolide antibiotics. Geoff 1 - Carroll 50.
I have mentioned before that there are 3 golden rules of paediatrics. 1. Always plot the height and weight on an appropriate centile chart, 2. Always check the urine, 3. Something complicated about the thing that involves the most work being the thing that needs doing. Now throughout paediatrics I have also come up with new rules, which I attempted to use humorously in a presentation I gave this morning but evidently failed.
The 4th Rule Of Paediatrics:
In one of our first lectures, Dr C asked 'Deerface' to multiply their weight (88kg) by some random number, like pi to 6 digits or something. Now, because up to this point Dr C had been extremely jokey, fun and relaxed, the boy in question replied 'ppffffftttt, can't be bothered'. At this point the room turned eerily cold, a haze of fog began to cover the floor and the lights began to flicker.
Dr C: Well then you can get out.
Deerface: Hehehe
Dr C: Get out of my lecture
Deerface: Hehe, to work it out?
Dr C: No, if you can't be BOTHERED to answer my questions then you can get out. I'm a nice guy, but I won't tolerate that.
Deerface: Oh I'm sorry it was a joke.
Dr C: I put alot of work into this teaching I don't expect such INSOLENCE
Deerface: but but but...
Bolts of lightning then erupted from Dr Cs hands, turning Deerface into a pile of smoking dust.
Dr C: OK, now can anybody else be bothered to work this out?
Thus the 4th rule of paediatrics is: No matter how complicated the calculation, you must always work it out in the lecture.
The 5th Rule Of Paediatrics:
As I've mentioned before, I have consistantly been shut down by lecturers for having the wrong answer when I know I've been correct and this is generally due to the fact that adult physicians (i.e. those that work with adults, not those rare few who are above the age of 12) LIE and the only people who know what they are talking about are Paediatricians.
This came to a head in the following situation
Dr Knowseverything: So, what causes cardiac murmers?
Me: Turbulent blood flow.
Dr K: NO! That doesn't make any sense. Who remembers their A-level physics?
Me: Me
Dr K: Well Sound is a type of ENERGY
Me: ...no it isn't...
Dr K: Can energy be created or destroyed
Me: ...well no but sound isn't a...
Dr k: Therefore how can turbulent blood flow create sound energy
Me: ...by setting up vibrations in the heart wall that are transmitted to air and perceived by us as sound...
Dr K: It Can't!
Me: ...but but but...
Dr K: Now, we all know that electricity flowing through resistance forms heat.
Me: ...yeees..
Dr K: So blood flow through a resistance creates sound.
Me: ...only because it's turbulent...
Dr K: So don't let any of those 35 or so distinguished lecturers you've had who know about this LIE to you any longer. They are wrong and I am right.
So the 5th rule of paeds is: You are always wrong, especially when you are right.
And the 6th rule is, as ever. NEVER talk about Fight Club.
Anyway paediatrics is awesome and my only regret is I have another 10,000 years of adult medicine left before I get to specialise in it.
As for the rest of my life, well, Sam is leaving so I have nowhere to live as I need to find somewhere that I can fit my piano. and no, I will not sell my piano it is too beautiful. However I'm sure he may find it hard to move WHEN HE HAS NO LEGS... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA. *cough*
Also my car blew up, bless it. I was driving along and heard some banging noises, so I looked in the rear-view to see who i'd crushed this time and saw nothing. On looking back ahead I couldn't help but notice the plumes of smoke from the bonnet and the newly formed dents from exploding engine in the metal work.
Unhelpfully, the garage then LIED (as if they were an adult physician) and tried to make out that i couldn't get my £2,000 scrappage bonus unless the car was in working order. As such I agreed to let them fix the immediate problem (shattered radiator) so i could drive it to a dealer and buy a new car. They then rang and said that sadly the car is totally screwed and so I can't do anything with it. They then 'kindly' offered me £200 for the car if i handed it over to them.
Being a niave upper middle class village boy, I graciously accepted this offer and went about looking for cars made of tin-foil that I might be able to afford without the precious £2,000 discount. However Sam, ever the country-leaving betrayer/awesome friend, was suspicious and so rang up some dealers to check it out. Apparently even if the car has been crushed into a cube you can still take it for the scrappage discount provided you have an MOT (which I do) and you've owned it for >12 months (which I have).
LYING PIKIE MOTHERCR*SHING MECHANIC C*NT BAS*ARDS.
Anyway Big Sam shouted at them for me and it's all ironed out. Except I can't work out which car to buy as the Fiat 500 is made entirely of the type of plastic you expect to find inside a Christmas selection box and the dealer knew absolutely sod all about the car during the test drive. Sadly, all other cars are about £2,000 more than I wanted to spend :(
Oh and finally, Joe & Nikki's wedding.
Firstly it was absolutely lovely and I had a great time.
Secondly they did that standard religious person trick of pulling out the 'cool' religious music that has drums and guitar and then using a public speaker guy who made 100 valid points about love and marriage and then swifty at the end half mumbled 'because of Jesus' in an attempt to convince us. 'Hmm' I though, 'that does make sense, maybe Jesus IS within us all'. 'Oh wait, there is absolutely no evidence at all that he exists and every argument for his existence is a total load of gash'
Except I never really thought this, because the futility of pro-religious argument is so deeply ingrained within me that I wouldn't even consider it for a second.
Anyway, clearly it made them both very happy yada yada. Furthermore the wedding was totally saturated with BEAUTIFUL, TALENTED FRIENDS who i've not seen in A THOUSAND YEARS and MISS TERRIBLY ALREADY. This reminded me that maybe I should give up with medicine and Nottingham in a Sam-esque fashion and move to London, live in a box and see these guys more often because it would make me happy.
Maybe.
So there we are, perhaps my next blog will be a) sooner b) interesting.
Donations to the Geoff has no Car and no House fund can be sent to:
Poor Geoff :(
PO Box 12345
Boston
Lincolnshire
PL3 45E god never send me there
Yea-eaaaaa,
Read my blogy now,
Yea-eaaaaa,
Everybooooody now,
Read my blogy right *mow mow mow mow mow mow*.
Etc...
Soooooooooo, it's been a while hasn't it. Sadly my life has been most full, most full of generally shitty things that have made me sad and frankly this blog is not the place to be sad. It's the place for FUNK.
And in the absence of funk, an attempt at witty satire about my medical studenty life will have to suffice.
So going back a muchos longos timos to Tommy, well what can I say? It's a terrible show, essentially, is what I have to say. However we did succeed in being conspicuously loud, with guitar amps the size of Sam's bank balance and a snare drum made entirely from a unique NASA-designed loudness creating polymer consisting of 3 parts CRACK and 6 parts SMACK. Unbeknownst to me, poor Samuel spent the first 6 nights being deafened by a speaker that, inexplicably, not only amplified exclusively the sounds from my keyboard but also amplified them to the high heavens. Unfortunately due to its position, WITHIN SAM'S VERY BRAIN, Sam could ONLY hear me and I could not hear me at all. This resulted in some dangerously loud piano playing and some dangerously loud drumming. Sadly for all, my piano playing is a load of gash and so I apologise now to all those that endured it.
On the plus side, I did get a huge STEINHOPFENSCHLOFFEN (which is my pseudo-German word for large glass recepticle for beer) as a present from the cast. On a further negative side, however, I also got THE PLAGUE as an additional present from the cast. The plague hit me on the Friday evening before the last performance as I sat around in the med school luncheon area and noticed that I was shaking dramatically and could no longer feel my hands. This swiftly progressed into a deeeep chesty cough with associated pericarditis, mucosal haemorrhage and, predictably, The AIDS. To make matters worse, the next day had a matinee performance, so I had to the prospect of sitting in a bleak orchestra pit all day, exuding mucous onto my keyboard, likely shorting it out and setting the whole theatre on fire.
Except that the theatre is helpfully made entirely of carcinagous asbestos.
Fortunately there exists such a thing, as Dr Carroll will tell you forever, as the placebo effect. I therefore went to boots at 1:59 (Matinee starting at 2:00) to purchase Placebo (a.k.a Beechams Cold & Flu, and Covonia cough mixture) and to pick up my life saving inhalers.
Knowing, of course, that I was in a rush, the pharmacist continued to chat to her previous customer about, I dunno, casual sex or some such, for around 20 minutes after I handed in my prescription and so the likelyhood was that I'd be late for the start of the show. I therefor ran through town, being hindered the whole way by a) my eosinophilic lungs and b) a matrix-esque promenade of people walking in the opposite direction, to the theatre in order to avoid anal rapage by Nathan.
When I arrived, however, I discovered that something important, such as the stage curtain, or maybe the doors of the theatre, had broken and so we sat around for another 40 minutes making idle chit chat about politically incorrect things such as the worthlessness of old grannies (which was, without our knowledge, being picked up by the microphones and broadcast to the old grannies in the audience) until the show started.
And that's all there is to say about Tommy really, boring hey? I won't mention 'the dark day' that happened during the week when every member of the band fell out with each other, largely due to the fact that I smacked a tennis ball in Hywel's face and that the guys left MacDuff! (Pam's name is always written as MacDuff!) standing around in the freezing cold for 40 minutes because they forgot to tell her about the court. Amusingly this did cause Hywel to smash his tennis raquet on the floor in a rage and leave it in a nearby bin. Guess you had to be there.
So paediatrics then? What's the deal there.
Well it's been really good actually. Yes i am now ill AGAIN thanks to the snot nosed brats, and I damn near lost the will to live after the 80th time that Dr Carroll told me I was wrong when I was definitely right but I still feel like this is the speciality for me.
Highlights have included:
Having a community paediatrician attachment in what I can only assume was an old abandoned mental asylum, with bars on the windows and white tiled walls. The consultation room was made entirely of pointy metal objects and unnecessarily child-accessible scolding hot water taps, perhaps installed to test the vigilance of parents. I was, as ever, exceedingly ill on this day so spent much of it seeking the warmth of radiators, microwave ovens and workmen's armpits so I learned more or less nothing except: Do not become a community paediatrician.
Finding out that one of my classmates decided to stick an epipen in his leg (for those of you who have not seen an epipen, the needle is FU*KING HUUUUUUGE and, in this case was dripping with adrenaline after Dr Carroll savagely injected a chair with it to demonstrate it's viciousness) without flinching and without ever giving an explanation.
Correcting the ever-correct Dr Carroll on his knowledge of the mode of action of penicillin and then again on his knowledge of the action of macrolide antibiotics. Geoff 1 - Carroll 50.
I have mentioned before that there are 3 golden rules of paediatrics. 1. Always plot the height and weight on an appropriate centile chart, 2. Always check the urine, 3. Something complicated about the thing that involves the most work being the thing that needs doing. Now throughout paediatrics I have also come up with new rules, which I attempted to use humorously in a presentation I gave this morning but evidently failed.
The 4th Rule Of Paediatrics:
In one of our first lectures, Dr C asked 'Deerface' to multiply their weight (88kg) by some random number, like pi to 6 digits or something. Now, because up to this point Dr C had been extremely jokey, fun and relaxed, the boy in question replied 'ppffffftttt, can't be bothered'. At this point the room turned eerily cold, a haze of fog began to cover the floor and the lights began to flicker.
Dr C: Well then you can get out.
Deerface: Hehehe
Dr C: Get out of my lecture
Deerface: Hehe, to work it out?
Dr C: No, if you can't be BOTHERED to answer my questions then you can get out. I'm a nice guy, but I won't tolerate that.
Deerface: Oh I'm sorry it was a joke.
Dr C: I put alot of work into this teaching I don't expect such INSOLENCE
Deerface: but but but...
Bolts of lightning then erupted from Dr Cs hands, turning Deerface into a pile of smoking dust.
Dr C: OK, now can anybody else be bothered to work this out?
Thus the 4th rule of paediatrics is: No matter how complicated the calculation, you must always work it out in the lecture.
The 5th Rule Of Paediatrics:
As I've mentioned before, I have consistantly been shut down by lecturers for having the wrong answer when I know I've been correct and this is generally due to the fact that adult physicians (i.e. those that work with adults, not those rare few who are above the age of 12) LIE and the only people who know what they are talking about are Paediatricians.
This came to a head in the following situation
Dr Knowseverything: So, what causes cardiac murmers?
Me: Turbulent blood flow.
Dr K: NO! That doesn't make any sense. Who remembers their A-level physics?
Me: Me
Dr K: Well Sound is a type of ENERGY
Me: ...no it isn't...
Dr K: Can energy be created or destroyed
Me: ...well no but sound isn't a...
Dr k: Therefore how can turbulent blood flow create sound energy
Me: ...by setting up vibrations in the heart wall that are transmitted to air and perceived by us as sound...
Dr K: It Can't!
Me: ...but but but...
Dr K: Now, we all know that electricity flowing through resistance forms heat.
Me: ...yeees..
Dr K: So blood flow through a resistance creates sound.
Me: ...only because it's turbulent...
Dr K: So don't let any of those 35 or so distinguished lecturers you've had who know about this LIE to you any longer. They are wrong and I am right.
So the 5th rule of paeds is: You are always wrong, especially when you are right.
And the 6th rule is, as ever. NEVER talk about Fight Club.
Anyway paediatrics is awesome and my only regret is I have another 10,000 years of adult medicine left before I get to specialise in it.
As for the rest of my life, well, Sam is leaving so I have nowhere to live as I need to find somewhere that I can fit my piano. and no, I will not sell my piano it is too beautiful. However I'm sure he may find it hard to move WHEN HE HAS NO LEGS... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA. *cough*
Also my car blew up, bless it. I was driving along and heard some banging noises, so I looked in the rear-view to see who i'd crushed this time and saw nothing. On looking back ahead I couldn't help but notice the plumes of smoke from the bonnet and the newly formed dents from exploding engine in the metal work.
Unhelpfully, the garage then LIED (as if they were an adult physician) and tried to make out that i couldn't get my £2,000 scrappage bonus unless the car was in working order. As such I agreed to let them fix the immediate problem (shattered radiator) so i could drive it to a dealer and buy a new car. They then rang and said that sadly the car is totally screwed and so I can't do anything with it. They then 'kindly' offered me £200 for the car if i handed it over to them.
Being a niave upper middle class village boy, I graciously accepted this offer and went about looking for cars made of tin-foil that I might be able to afford without the precious £2,000 discount. However Sam, ever the country-leaving betrayer/awesome friend, was suspicious and so rang up some dealers to check it out. Apparently even if the car has been crushed into a cube you can still take it for the scrappage discount provided you have an MOT (which I do) and you've owned it for >12 months (which I have).
LYING PIKIE MOTHERCR*SHING MECHANIC C*NT BAS*ARDS.
Anyway Big Sam shouted at them for me and it's all ironed out. Except I can't work out which car to buy as the Fiat 500 is made entirely of the type of plastic you expect to find inside a Christmas selection box and the dealer knew absolutely sod all about the car during the test drive. Sadly, all other cars are about £2,000 more than I wanted to spend :(
Oh and finally, Joe & Nikki's wedding.
Firstly it was absolutely lovely and I had a great time.
Secondly they did that standard religious person trick of pulling out the 'cool' religious music that has drums and guitar and then using a public speaker guy who made 100 valid points about love and marriage and then swifty at the end half mumbled 'because of Jesus' in an attempt to convince us. 'Hmm' I though, 'that does make sense, maybe Jesus IS within us all'. 'Oh wait, there is absolutely no evidence at all that he exists and every argument for his existence is a total load of gash'
Except I never really thought this, because the futility of pro-religious argument is so deeply ingrained within me that I wouldn't even consider it for a second.
Anyway, clearly it made them both very happy yada yada. Furthermore the wedding was totally saturated with BEAUTIFUL, TALENTED FRIENDS who i've not seen in A THOUSAND YEARS and MISS TERRIBLY ALREADY. This reminded me that maybe I should give up with medicine and Nottingham in a Sam-esque fashion and move to London, live in a box and see these guys more often because it would make me happy.
Maybe.
So there we are, perhaps my next blog will be a) sooner b) interesting.
Donations to the Geoff has no Car and no House fund can be sent to:
Poor Geoff :(
PO Box 12345
Boston
Lincolnshire
PL3 45E god never send me there
Friday, 2 October 2009
Tommy can you hear me? No, oh well then we should investigate you using evoked otoacoustic emission...
Geoff is back ALRIGHT, *synth*
Good morning, my pretties, I hope you have all been well, I sit here on hour 1 of this Friday's Pointlessly Long Gap Between Lectures Extravaganza (TM) and, though I should be learning about neonatal jaundice & gastrointestinal problems I am faaaar too lazy and feel a blog is the best way forward.
So what thrilling events have occurred since our last chat?
Well at the beginning of this week I had my first real interaction with kiddies, in what is called a 'Developmental Assessment Session'. What this involves, in reality, is sitting down with kids for 3 hours and playing with toys. At first this was reasonably scary
Me: But whyyyy have you handed me this Mr Potato Head husk, that lacks in all limbs and appendages?
18 month old child: *SCREAMS OF JOY*
Me: But but this serves me no useful purpose. I cannot calculate my mortgage repayments with this!
Child looks at me imploringly, waiting for me to do something with toy
Me: Do you not understand me, man? Can you not cogitate than use of such frivolous things is below my extreme intellect?
You know that bit from Jurassic Park where the previously cute dinosaur tilts it's head to one side, hisses and spits BURNING ACID into that fat guy's face? Well children do this manoeuvre too, only it's not acid it's tears, tears and screaming.
Child: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
All parents/doctors turn to look to see what, the f*ck, I have just done to this child and whether I should be sent to prison forever.
Me: Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit
At this point, as though 'Jesus' himself, and by Jesus I mean millions of years of evolution, had injected the thought into my brain i instinctively picked up the dead remnants of Mr Potato head and peered through one of the holes left behind by his severed limbs.
The child immediately perked up and started laughing. To the max.
The next 24-48 hours were spent with us taking it in turns to look through the holes in Mr Potato Head and mirth was had by all. Especially the parents, who all escaped to some kind of amusement park and got WASTED on vodka.
Probably.
This session made me realise how awesome fun children are when you just give up trying to think logically and do random things with random stuff. A particular Northerner in my group spent a good deal of time cooking a yellow plastic cup in an oven, for some reason, and had a whale of a time; this being said, cooking fake food in a non functioning oven is likely the staple of northern entertainment when there is no coal around (and, these days, there never is so) the fun may have had little to do with the child.
The next day I was timetabled to go to 'Special School'. Now for those of you who were EVER a schoolchild you will know that the word 'special' must always be pronounced with ones tongue firmly embedded under their bottom lip and then followed up with some extremely un-PC grunting noises. This is the way it has always and shall forever be, at least until they think up another word for 'Special' people.
Political correctness in the naming of children who are, let us say, less mentally on the ball than they might otherwise be, is a particular bug-bear of mine. This stems from when we had a GEM 'Multidisciplinary Learning Day' where we were forced at gun point to attend and the nursing students (who were neither smoking hot, dressed in bikinis, or 18 years old as had been advertised to us) were given a casual suggestion that they might want to turn up. As a result: Sausagefest. Anyway at this day we had to sit through an hour long lecture on what the right words to use are. We were told that as each term came along, it gradually got used in a derogatory sense - making out that having 'learning difficulties' (as it should be called, apparently) was a bad thing.
NEWS FLASH: Having an IQ below 50 IS A BAD THING! Under no circumstances is it a good thing!
So Mental Retard is out (even though that scientifically describes the condition; as their mental development is slowed, or retarded), as is Mental Disability, as is Learning Disability. The new term, as I mentioned above, is Learning Difficulties. The plural is important here because if you have a Learning DifficultY then you just have something like dyslexia, or AIDS or whatever. If you have Learning DifficulTIES then you are much more severely handicapped. Though, you can't use the word handicapped either because that implies that people should be pitied.
NOTE: If I am ever in a car accident and lose my ability to function at a highish level. PLEASE DO PITY ME. IT WILL SUCK, I WILL BE VERY ANNOYED ABOUT IT.
Now my real anger towards this (that you may have noticed) stems from the fact that one of the lecturers, who i was inclined to believe had a few learning difficulties of her own, kept using the following phrase: 'Now this girl/boy had severe and MULTIPLE learning difficulties'. With huge emphasis on the multiple. The issue here is that DIFFICULTIES IS PLURAL, BY DEFINITION YOU HAVE TO HAVE MULTIPLE LEARNING DIFFICULTIES.
I may not have got across quite how annoying that was there so you doubtless think i'm insane, but I care not.
I'd also like to point out that I have huge admiration for everyone who works with these children and for the children themselves, who have been dealt rather a shady set of cards in life and deserve the best treatment possible. What annoys me is the airy fairy types who spend all their days thinking of the nicest way to describe the people and spend no time at all helping them in a useful way.
I digress.
So the school. Firstly I was thwarted by Miss Satnav who decided to take me via Milan and the Hanging Gardens Of Babylon before delivering me at the school (just round the corner from the hospital I go to every day and know exactly how to get to much more quickly). What's that, you say? Use a frikking map you moron? Well shhh!
The school had just been rebuilt with a government grant and was hyper wyper sniper fancy, it had been thoughtfully designed so that noone could get lost; e.g. it was in a big circle, had wide corridors for wheelcairs, had colour coded areas so that people who couldn't read could find where they needed to be and was generally top notch.
Nice work there, Labour, sorry to hear the Chavs who read the Sun won't be supporting you anymore for some arbitrary reason, but they'll be laughing on the other side of their burberry wearing faces when the Connies shut down all public funding for anything, including their precious benefits. That said, they don't turn up to vote anyway, so it probably won't make any difference.
I was soon ushered off to THE OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE by a bus from the 1830s that ran on steam, to go swimming. It has been a long time since I went to the public swimming baths and all I could generally remember was the fact you went in healthy, at some point found a random used plaster attached to your face and came out with varuccas a gogo. This may well still turn out to be the case from this encounter but what I'd missed in my memories was the joy of swimming and, furthermore, the joy of swimming with kids who aren't all that great at swimming (at this school, 'kids' go up to the age of 21).
Why joys? Because when you get success their faces light up like Lewis Barlow in a rehearsal break and there is much clapping and smiling. Sadly the clapping usually causes the kids to begin to drown and floats have to be swiftly administered to avoid death by pneumonia. On the way back from swimming an extremely cute boy cuddled up next to me on the bus and fell asleep fiddling with my watch.
My watch is now broken.
The afternoon was spent helping the kids eat dinner and then attending a French lesson. Sadly, my French was worse than theirs, despite them being unable to recall the meaning of 'au revoir', mere, pere, frere, soere or really anything else ending with 're' (which, in French, is EVERYTHING). I then helped the make bookmarks and then f*cked the hell off home 40 minutes early because Matt, the other medical student with me, had swanned in at 9:30 (I was there from 8:30) and spent the morning, so far as I can tell, chatting up the teachers with great success.
Pffft, just because he's attractive, hmph.
On Wednesday I was with The Health Visitor that, if she'd been a cybernetic robot from the future, would be an excellent premise for a film. Sadly she was not so the day was mainly spent with my face up Mr Potato Head's backside amusing children while she weighed their newborn sibling. I did notice, in my travels, that Postman Pat has made quite the come back. He was reasonably popular back in Nineteen Aught Six when I was a lad, but nowerdays he's bloody everywhere. One kid even had a Postman Pat massive doll thing, that wore a helmet with headset microphone and actually talked. He looked like Neo from the Matrix he was that cool.
Sorry kids but, in reality, the Post Office are a TOTAL LOAD OF GASH and can only be relied upon to go on strike when you'd really rather they didn't.
And that's all I have to say really, except that as of tomorrow we shall be in full swing for Tommy at the Nottingham Arts Theatre, Tickets are on-sale now (probably). It's a show about a boy who becomes deaf dumb and blind, (though he's not REALLY deaf dumb and blind, he is just unresponsive to auditory or visual stimuli and doesn't speak) whose f*ckup parents take him to a drug dealer, a car mechanic, the oracle, David Hasslehoff and a variety of other people before seeing a real doctor. In the meantime he gets raped by just about everyone in his family and then becomes amazing at pin ball. He then gains the ability to see hear and talk (he is freed from his 'strange vibration land', yes that's right, The Who, keep on smoking those drugs, they're clearly good for you) and gains god-like status due to his pin ball skills.
HE PLAYS PINBALL PEOPLE, GET A FRIKKING LIFE!
*cough*
Anyway, the script is terrible and the music is reasonably terrible but a lot of people put a lot of work into it and, most importantly, Hywel is going to be playing and it will ROCK YOUR FRIKKING SOCKS OFF. Furthermore, Graeme Crawford, an extremely talented singer and actor, is playing one of the lead roles so he is worth seeing too.
Good morning, my pretties, I hope you have all been well, I sit here on hour 1 of this Friday's Pointlessly Long Gap Between Lectures Extravaganza (TM) and, though I should be learning about neonatal jaundice & gastrointestinal problems I am faaaar too lazy and feel a blog is the best way forward.
So what thrilling events have occurred since our last chat?
Well at the beginning of this week I had my first real interaction with kiddies, in what is called a 'Developmental Assessment Session'. What this involves, in reality, is sitting down with kids for 3 hours and playing with toys. At first this was reasonably scary
Me: But whyyyy have you handed me this Mr Potato Head husk, that lacks in all limbs and appendages?
18 month old child: *SCREAMS OF JOY*
Me: But but this serves me no useful purpose. I cannot calculate my mortgage repayments with this!
Child looks at me imploringly, waiting for me to do something with toy
Me: Do you not understand me, man? Can you not cogitate than use of such frivolous things is below my extreme intellect?
You know that bit from Jurassic Park where the previously cute dinosaur tilts it's head to one side, hisses and spits BURNING ACID into that fat guy's face? Well children do this manoeuvre too, only it's not acid it's tears, tears and screaming.
Child: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
All parents/doctors turn to look to see what, the f*ck, I have just done to this child and whether I should be sent to prison forever.
Me: Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit
At this point, as though 'Jesus' himself, and by Jesus I mean millions of years of evolution, had injected the thought into my brain i instinctively picked up the dead remnants of Mr Potato head and peered through one of the holes left behind by his severed limbs.
The child immediately perked up and started laughing. To the max.
The next 24-48 hours were spent with us taking it in turns to look through the holes in Mr Potato Head and mirth was had by all. Especially the parents, who all escaped to some kind of amusement park and got WASTED on vodka.
Probably.
This session made me realise how awesome fun children are when you just give up trying to think logically and do random things with random stuff. A particular Northerner in my group spent a good deal of time cooking a yellow plastic cup in an oven, for some reason, and had a whale of a time; this being said, cooking fake food in a non functioning oven is likely the staple of northern entertainment when there is no coal around (and, these days, there never is so) the fun may have had little to do with the child.
The next day I was timetabled to go to 'Special School'. Now for those of you who were EVER a schoolchild you will know that the word 'special' must always be pronounced with ones tongue firmly embedded under their bottom lip and then followed up with some extremely un-PC grunting noises. This is the way it has always and shall forever be, at least until they think up another word for 'Special' people.
Political correctness in the naming of children who are, let us say, less mentally on the ball than they might otherwise be, is a particular bug-bear of mine. This stems from when we had a GEM 'Multidisciplinary Learning Day' where we were forced at gun point to attend and the nursing students (who were neither smoking hot, dressed in bikinis, or 18 years old as had been advertised to us) were given a casual suggestion that they might want to turn up. As a result: Sausagefest. Anyway at this day we had to sit through an hour long lecture on what the right words to use are. We were told that as each term came along, it gradually got used in a derogatory sense - making out that having 'learning difficulties' (as it should be called, apparently) was a bad thing.
NEWS FLASH: Having an IQ below 50 IS A BAD THING! Under no circumstances is it a good thing!
So Mental Retard is out (even though that scientifically describes the condition; as their mental development is slowed, or retarded), as is Mental Disability, as is Learning Disability. The new term, as I mentioned above, is Learning Difficulties. The plural is important here because if you have a Learning DifficultY then you just have something like dyslexia, or AIDS or whatever. If you have Learning DifficulTIES then you are much more severely handicapped. Though, you can't use the word handicapped either because that implies that people should be pitied.
NOTE: If I am ever in a car accident and lose my ability to function at a highish level. PLEASE DO PITY ME. IT WILL SUCK, I WILL BE VERY ANNOYED ABOUT IT.
Now my real anger towards this (that you may have noticed) stems from the fact that one of the lecturers, who i was inclined to believe had a few learning difficulties of her own, kept using the following phrase: 'Now this girl/boy had severe and MULTIPLE learning difficulties'. With huge emphasis on the multiple. The issue here is that DIFFICULTIES IS PLURAL, BY DEFINITION YOU HAVE TO HAVE MULTIPLE LEARNING DIFFICULTIES.
I may not have got across quite how annoying that was there so you doubtless think i'm insane, but I care not.
I'd also like to point out that I have huge admiration for everyone who works with these children and for the children themselves, who have been dealt rather a shady set of cards in life and deserve the best treatment possible. What annoys me is the airy fairy types who spend all their days thinking of the nicest way to describe the people and spend no time at all helping them in a useful way.
I digress.
So the school. Firstly I was thwarted by Miss Satnav who decided to take me via Milan and the Hanging Gardens Of Babylon before delivering me at the school (just round the corner from the hospital I go to every day and know exactly how to get to much more quickly). What's that, you say? Use a frikking map you moron? Well shhh!
The school had just been rebuilt with a government grant and was hyper wyper sniper fancy, it had been thoughtfully designed so that noone could get lost; e.g. it was in a big circle, had wide corridors for wheelcairs, had colour coded areas so that people who couldn't read could find where they needed to be and was generally top notch.
Nice work there, Labour, sorry to hear the Chavs who read the Sun won't be supporting you anymore for some arbitrary reason, but they'll be laughing on the other side of their burberry wearing faces when the Connies shut down all public funding for anything, including their precious benefits. That said, they don't turn up to vote anyway, so it probably won't make any difference.
I was soon ushered off to THE OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE by a bus from the 1830s that ran on steam, to go swimming. It has been a long time since I went to the public swimming baths and all I could generally remember was the fact you went in healthy, at some point found a random used plaster attached to your face and came out with varuccas a gogo. This may well still turn out to be the case from this encounter but what I'd missed in my memories was the joy of swimming and, furthermore, the joy of swimming with kids who aren't all that great at swimming (at this school, 'kids' go up to the age of 21).
Why joys? Because when you get success their faces light up like Lewis Barlow in a rehearsal break and there is much clapping and smiling. Sadly the clapping usually causes the kids to begin to drown and floats have to be swiftly administered to avoid death by pneumonia. On the way back from swimming an extremely cute boy cuddled up next to me on the bus and fell asleep fiddling with my watch.
My watch is now broken.
The afternoon was spent helping the kids eat dinner and then attending a French lesson. Sadly, my French was worse than theirs, despite them being unable to recall the meaning of 'au revoir', mere, pere, frere, soere or really anything else ending with 're' (which, in French, is EVERYTHING). I then helped the make bookmarks and then f*cked the hell off home 40 minutes early because Matt, the other medical student with me, had swanned in at 9:30 (I was there from 8:30) and spent the morning, so far as I can tell, chatting up the teachers with great success.
Pffft, just because he's attractive, hmph.
On Wednesday I was with The Health Visitor that, if she'd been a cybernetic robot from the future, would be an excellent premise for a film. Sadly she was not so the day was mainly spent with my face up Mr Potato Head's backside amusing children while she weighed their newborn sibling. I did notice, in my travels, that Postman Pat has made quite the come back. He was reasonably popular back in Nineteen Aught Six when I was a lad, but nowerdays he's bloody everywhere. One kid even had a Postman Pat massive doll thing, that wore a helmet with headset microphone and actually talked. He looked like Neo from the Matrix he was that cool.
Sorry kids but, in reality, the Post Office are a TOTAL LOAD OF GASH and can only be relied upon to go on strike when you'd really rather they didn't.
And that's all I have to say really, except that as of tomorrow we shall be in full swing for Tommy at the Nottingham Arts Theatre, Tickets are on-sale now (probably). It's a show about a boy who becomes deaf dumb and blind, (though he's not REALLY deaf dumb and blind, he is just unresponsive to auditory or visual stimuli and doesn't speak) whose f*ckup parents take him to a drug dealer, a car mechanic, the oracle, David Hasslehoff and a variety of other people before seeing a real doctor. In the meantime he gets raped by just about everyone in his family and then becomes amazing at pin ball. He then gains the ability to see hear and talk (he is freed from his 'strange vibration land', yes that's right, The Who, keep on smoking those drugs, they're clearly good for you) and gains god-like status due to his pin ball skills.
HE PLAYS PINBALL PEOPLE, GET A FRIKKING LIFE!
*cough*
Anyway, the script is terrible and the music is reasonably terrible but a lot of people put a lot of work into it and, most importantly, Hywel is going to be playing and it will ROCK YOUR FRIKKING SOCKS OFF. Furthermore, Graeme Crawford, an extremely talented singer and actor, is playing one of the lead roles so he is worth seeing too.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
The hours may be bad, but the minutes... the minutes are fantastic
Me again.
First day at Derby today, and I've got to say I'm frikkin glad to be back! The hospital is still shiny, the staff are friendly and, most importantly, the car parking is nearer than ever before.
Things started well, with free coffee (that, had I have not arrived 25 minutes early with my glamorous car-pool buddy, Ki-ora... or some spelling like that, and bought a coffee for a wallet stripping £0.35, I might have taken advantage of better. No worries though; as my ever disappointed mother always says at Christmas, it's the thought that counts. Glad you enjoyed those oven gloves, mum.), a group saturated with people I don't want to stab in the face and most importantly of all things: no vaginas. Well I imagine there were some vaginas there, but they were tastefully taken off display for once.
Who am I kidding, if ONLY they'd been on display on O&G, then it might have SUCKED SLIGHTLY LESS ASS.
Now now, Geoff, enough of this moaning. In time, with lots of therapy, you may learn to accept what has happened in the past and move on.
*cough*
So Will Carroll, half muppet (the felt kind not the prat kind), half Simpson's character, three quarters public speaker, nine eights compound time signature and all round enthusiastic muchacho, introduced us to the course which will apparently include so much teaching that we'll be as taught as a virgin's jock strap at a strip club (he didn't use this joke but, frankly, he should have) by the end of it. As he said it I could hear, in the far distance, someone from City hospital, where I was for O&G, die of shock at the thought that medical students should be in some way educated during their attachment. This pleased me.
He then taught us the 3 rules of Paediatrics
1. Never talk about Paediatrics
2. Never talk about Paediatrics
3. NEVER TALK ABOUT PAEDIATRICS
Or was that Fight Club, I forget, anyway whatever the 3 rules are he made damn sure than no-one forgot them by the end of the day.
No-one at all.
After this, and copious more free tea/coffee/laser eye treatment, we were released onto the wards to take a history from a child. Sadly I can't think of anything 'hilarious' about this to talk about and can only state my jealousy about the fact that the super-cute boy we spoke to had Nintendo DS skillz that were more l33t than mine. We then got a tour, also reasonably uneventful, except that he told us how special we are and how we should take any shit from anyone cos we put £1,200 a week EACH into the hospital so we should get our money's worth. This, I assume, means the provision of oiled bikini models, I shall be unimpressed if not.
More happiness was dished out to me when I returned to the lab where I do washing up to an elated welcome from the staff, and MOST EXCITINGLY OF ALL, there was lashings and lashings of ambrosia Devon Acetone there for me to clean those troublesome pen marks off the beakers.
What, stop looking at me like that?
So anyway the rest of the day was taken up learning interesting things and getting an oscar winning pep talk from Dr Will about how amazing Paediatrics is and how one's life would be complete by specialising in it. This talk was so gripping that I imagine he could have recruited an army of students to become neo-nazis to overthrow the government, had that have been his aim.
Key points to remember
Paediatrics: Awesome
Derby: Awesomer
Drugs: Bad
Now I hope not to write a blog for a while now so that the next one is actually INTERESTING IN SOME WAY, so keep checking back for more fun fun updates.
First day at Derby today, and I've got to say I'm frikkin glad to be back! The hospital is still shiny, the staff are friendly and, most importantly, the car parking is nearer than ever before.
Things started well, with free coffee (that, had I have not arrived 25 minutes early with my glamorous car-pool buddy, Ki-ora... or some spelling like that, and bought a coffee for a wallet stripping £0.35, I might have taken advantage of better. No worries though; as my ever disappointed mother always says at Christmas, it's the thought that counts. Glad you enjoyed those oven gloves, mum.), a group saturated with people I don't want to stab in the face and most importantly of all things: no vaginas. Well I imagine there were some vaginas there, but they were tastefully taken off display for once.
Who am I kidding, if ONLY they'd been on display on O&G, then it might have SUCKED SLIGHTLY LESS ASS.
Now now, Geoff, enough of this moaning. In time, with lots of therapy, you may learn to accept what has happened in the past and move on.
*cough*
So Will Carroll, half muppet (the felt kind not the prat kind), half Simpson's character, three quarters public speaker, nine eights compound time signature and all round enthusiastic muchacho, introduced us to the course which will apparently include so much teaching that we'll be as taught as a virgin's jock strap at a strip club (he didn't use this joke but, frankly, he should have) by the end of it. As he said it I could hear, in the far distance, someone from City hospital, where I was for O&G, die of shock at the thought that medical students should be in some way educated during their attachment. This pleased me.
He then taught us the 3 rules of Paediatrics
1. Never talk about Paediatrics
2. Never talk about Paediatrics
3. NEVER TALK ABOUT PAEDIATRICS
Or was that Fight Club, I forget, anyway whatever the 3 rules are he made damn sure than no-one forgot them by the end of the day.
No-one at all.
After this, and copious more free tea/coffee/laser eye treatment, we were released onto the wards to take a history from a child. Sadly I can't think of anything 'hilarious' about this to talk about and can only state my jealousy about the fact that the super-cute boy we spoke to had Nintendo DS skillz that were more l33t than mine. We then got a tour, also reasonably uneventful, except that he told us how special we are and how we should take any shit from anyone cos we put £1,200 a week EACH into the hospital so we should get our money's worth. This, I assume, means the provision of oiled bikini models, I shall be unimpressed if not.
More happiness was dished out to me when I returned to the lab where I do washing up to an elated welcome from the staff, and MOST EXCITINGLY OF ALL, there was lashings and lashings of ambrosia Devon Acetone there for me to clean those troublesome pen marks off the beakers.
What, stop looking at me like that?
So anyway the rest of the day was taken up learning interesting things and getting an oscar winning pep talk from Dr Will about how amazing Paediatrics is and how one's life would be complete by specialising in it. This talk was so gripping that I imagine he could have recruited an army of students to become neo-nazis to overthrow the government, had that have been his aim.
Key points to remember
Paediatrics: Awesome
Derby: Awesomer
Drugs: Bad
Now I hope not to write a blog for a while now so that the next one is actually INTERESTING IN SOME WAY, so keep checking back for more fun fun updates.
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
O&G, easy as Fourier transform equations (Part 2)
What? A Part 2 with a different name from the Part 1?! How canneth this man pretend to be well versed in the finer points of English?!
Well deal with it. Punks.
More ranting about O&G, then.
So yes, the background you have. Essentially losing the will to live due to there never being anything to do. Furthermore, the hospital also had in place some kind of 'booking' 'system' for all and sundry things such as theatre that, by the time I knew what was happening, was choc-a-bloc (much like a choc-ice I suppose) with bookings from nursing students, widwifery students, and Duncan Adshead (pronounced, for the purposes of this blog, ad-sheed).
On top of the chaos, we started to worry that, perhaps, we might not be learning enough. Certainly, I had forgotten what a vagina WAS by week 2 (I'm still reasonably unsure) and as for paroxysmal nocturnal haematuria, well, that was just a collection of long words unrelated to this topic. Into the breech, then, came Laura Anthony, or was it Anthony Laura, or maybe Anthony Lynch. Someone, anyway, who wouldn't take 'go off home and watch your porn' for an answer. She, very kindly, because the rest of us were a bunch of fags who couldn't tell an e-mail from a benign uterine polp, sent off an electronogram to the grand uberfurrer (forgive the missing umlaut) of O&G. Dr P.
Now, Dr P, well I'm not going to say anything on here because she'll probably find me and hurt me.
Hurt me in the face.
But Dr P was having none of this. She dragged Laura into her office (which is located in the depths of a volcano, as you could imagine) at 8:30 and yelled at her, suggesting that requesting teaching that has been detailed to us in our timetable pack, and that the NHS pays the hospital £1,200 a week per student for, is an unrealistic expectation and that she should go, frankly, die in hell. Furthermore she insinuated, and by insinuated I mean explicitly stated, that Laura was making a bad name for herself in O&G and that her future prospects as a doctor, nae person, looked pretty bleak if she continued in this rash and rebellious manner.
So Laura, rightly, stabbed her in the face, as is the custom with annoying people.
Around this same time, I too was being dragged into the sulphurous fires of Dr P's office to have a 'discussion' regarding my attitude towards patients. Now, as a fluffy arty type, I had always held my attitude towards patients to be my best skill, and even if people beat me in exams (which, of course, they do not) at least I'll be a nice doctor that patients will like.
DENIED.
Apparently I'm far too nice, and if I continue along this way, law suits, rather than Armani suits will fill my wardrobe and my life will be a sad sad thing. To Dr P's credit, she did state this in an incredibly nice way and was very keen to assure me that it wasn't a problem and that I merely had to keep it in mind in future and that I shouldn't worry.
Shouldn't worry? I'm ME for god's sake. I always take things in the worst possible way, it's my raison d'etre (excuse the missing hat thing). If I didn't take everything in the worst way how would I moan all the time and be a general pest to society?
Hmm? Tell me.
Well, anyway, that was all a bit of a downer too.
The final straw came on labour week, I had done two 12 hour night shifts and had no sleep due to having to come in during the day (sleepy time) for this meeting with Dr P. I returned from theatre where they had been stitching back together a woman who had been QUITE LITERALLY RIPPED WIDE OPEN, YES DOWN THERE, I KNOW, PAINFUL SOUNDING ISN'T IT by having her beautiful and awesomely named child, to find the midwife who was running the place ushering me enthusiastically towards room 101, where a lady was giving birth to twins. Now the way it works on Labour Suite is that the midwives meet the patients, then ask if it's OK if a medical student comes in, bla bla. All the midwives knew I was around and had been told by the in-charge person to ask permission for me to be there, so when I was sent to the room I assumed this had all happened.
I realised that this was, perhaps, not ENTIRELY the case when the consultant (who is very tall, very scary and very female) half-whispered to the midwife 'do you know anything about this student being in here' to which the midwife SHOULD have responded from the below options
a) 'Oh yes, he's been around all night, I asked permission for him to be here and it is/isn't fine'
b) 'Oh yes, he's been around all night, I didn't get a chance to ask permission. Excuse me, Ms Patient, is it OK for him to be here?'
c) (Common niceness option, that, even if she had no idea who I was, she could have used) 'Oh..er... yeeees, yes he's fine come on in'
Instead she said 'pfft, no?'
(Especially shocking, given that I'd spent £20 by that point on cakes & biscuits for the midwives.)
The consultant then turns round to me and says, agitatedly, 'Look, you can't just stand there, either come in and introduce yourself or leave, one or the other'
Me: 'Oh hi, sorry, I'm Geoff. I'm the medical student on tonight'
Her: 'Yes, but have you got consent to be in here for this birth'
What I WANTED to say: I assume so, because otherwise the midwife hasn't done her F**KING JOB PROPERLY
What I DID say: Er.... well....
Her: 'Well you had better ask the patient then'
Patient *AGHHHHHHHH SCREEEEEEEAAAMMM I'MMM IN SO MUCH PAAAAIN OH GGGGOD AAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHGHGHGHGHGHGH*
Me: *waits for opportunity to ask patient when not screaming*
Her: 'FINE, WELL IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE COMMON DECENCY TO JUST ASK THE PATIENT THEN YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO GET OUT. NOW'
Me: Ok, I'm sorry, I'll leave.
Her: 'NO, JUST ASK THE PATIENT PERMISSION!!!!!!!!!!'
Patient (Thank, f**king Jesus): Oh is that a student yes he can come in.
At which point I almost left anyway because I felt like total and utter shit.
And that is, more or less how Obs & Gynae ended. Fun times for all, it also didn't help that the one consultant who actually knew I'm not a complete idiot didn't manage to make it to my final appraisal so the consultants there were, like, 'So, Jif, I can't say I've seen much of you, and when I have seen you you seem to be a complete moron. Tell me, can you spell 'Failure' for me?'
Gah.
Anyway, over now, and all is happiness and rainbows.
Well deal with it. Punks.
More ranting about O&G, then.
So yes, the background you have. Essentially losing the will to live due to there never being anything to do. Furthermore, the hospital also had in place some kind of 'booking' 'system' for all and sundry things such as theatre that, by the time I knew what was happening, was choc-a-bloc (much like a choc-ice I suppose) with bookings from nursing students, widwifery students, and Duncan Adshead (pronounced, for the purposes of this blog, ad-sheed).
On top of the chaos, we started to worry that, perhaps, we might not be learning enough. Certainly, I had forgotten what a vagina WAS by week 2 (I'm still reasonably unsure) and as for paroxysmal nocturnal haematuria, well, that was just a collection of long words unrelated to this topic. Into the breech, then, came Laura Anthony, or was it Anthony Laura, or maybe Anthony Lynch. Someone, anyway, who wouldn't take 'go off home and watch your porn' for an answer. She, very kindly, because the rest of us were a bunch of fags who couldn't tell an e-mail from a benign uterine polp, sent off an electronogram to the grand uberfurrer (forgive the missing umlaut) of O&G. Dr P.
Now, Dr P, well I'm not going to say anything on here because she'll probably find me and hurt me.
Hurt me in the face.
But Dr P was having none of this. She dragged Laura into her office (which is located in the depths of a volcano, as you could imagine) at 8:30 and yelled at her, suggesting that requesting teaching that has been detailed to us in our timetable pack, and that the NHS pays the hospital £1,200 a week per student for, is an unrealistic expectation and that she should go, frankly, die in hell. Furthermore she insinuated, and by insinuated I mean explicitly stated, that Laura was making a bad name for herself in O&G and that her future prospects as a doctor, nae person, looked pretty bleak if she continued in this rash and rebellious manner.
So Laura, rightly, stabbed her in the face, as is the custom with annoying people.
Around this same time, I too was being dragged into the sulphurous fires of Dr P's office to have a 'discussion' regarding my attitude towards patients. Now, as a fluffy arty type, I had always held my attitude towards patients to be my best skill, and even if people beat me in exams (which, of course, they do not) at least I'll be a nice doctor that patients will like.
DENIED.
Apparently I'm far too nice, and if I continue along this way, law suits, rather than Armani suits will fill my wardrobe and my life will be a sad sad thing. To Dr P's credit, she did state this in an incredibly nice way and was very keen to assure me that it wasn't a problem and that I merely had to keep it in mind in future and that I shouldn't worry.
Shouldn't worry? I'm ME for god's sake. I always take things in the worst possible way, it's my raison d'etre (excuse the missing hat thing). If I didn't take everything in the worst way how would I moan all the time and be a general pest to society?
Hmm? Tell me.
Well, anyway, that was all a bit of a downer too.
The final straw came on labour week, I had done two 12 hour night shifts and had no sleep due to having to come in during the day (sleepy time) for this meeting with Dr P. I returned from theatre where they had been stitching back together a woman who had been QUITE LITERALLY RIPPED WIDE OPEN, YES DOWN THERE, I KNOW, PAINFUL SOUNDING ISN'T IT by having her beautiful and awesomely named child, to find the midwife who was running the place ushering me enthusiastically towards room 101, where a lady was giving birth to twins. Now the way it works on Labour Suite is that the midwives meet the patients, then ask if it's OK if a medical student comes in, bla bla. All the midwives knew I was around and had been told by the in-charge person to ask permission for me to be there, so when I was sent to the room I assumed this had all happened.
I realised that this was, perhaps, not ENTIRELY the case when the consultant (who is very tall, very scary and very female) half-whispered to the midwife 'do you know anything about this student being in here' to which the midwife SHOULD have responded from the below options
a) 'Oh yes, he's been around all night, I asked permission for him to be here and it is/isn't fine'
b) 'Oh yes, he's been around all night, I didn't get a chance to ask permission. Excuse me, Ms Patient, is it OK for him to be here?'
c) (Common niceness option, that, even if she had no idea who I was, she could have used) 'Oh..er... yeeees, yes he's fine come on in'
Instead she said 'pfft, no?'
(Especially shocking, given that I'd spent £20 by that point on cakes & biscuits for the midwives.)
The consultant then turns round to me and says, agitatedly, 'Look, you can't just stand there, either come in and introduce yourself or leave, one or the other'
Me: 'Oh hi, sorry, I'm Geoff. I'm the medical student on tonight'
Her: 'Yes, but have you got consent to be in here for this birth'
What I WANTED to say: I assume so, because otherwise the midwife hasn't done her F**KING JOB PROPERLY
What I DID say: Er.... well....
Her: 'Well you had better ask the patient then'
Patient *AGHHHHHHHH SCREEEEEEEAAAMMM I'MMM IN SO MUCH PAAAAIN OH GGGGOD AAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHGHGHGHGHGHGH*
Me: *waits for opportunity to ask patient when not screaming*
Her: 'FINE, WELL IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE COMMON DECENCY TO JUST ASK THE PATIENT THEN YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO GET OUT. NOW'
Me: Ok, I'm sorry, I'll leave.
Her: 'NO, JUST ASK THE PATIENT PERMISSION!!!!!!!!!!'
Patient (Thank, f**king Jesus): Oh is that a student yes he can come in.
At which point I almost left anyway because I felt like total and utter shit.
And that is, more or less how Obs & Gynae ended. Fun times for all, it also didn't help that the one consultant who actually knew I'm not a complete idiot didn't manage to make it to my final appraisal so the consultants there were, like, 'So, Jif, I can't say I've seen much of you, and when I have seen you you seem to be a complete moron. Tell me, can you spell 'Failure' for me?'
Gah.
Anyway, over now, and all is happiness and rainbows.
Paedia-tricks
What's that, you say, another moan from the Burnster?
Wrong!
In your FACE!
So paediatrics is going well so far. Yes, this may have to do with the fact that we got a lie in until 2pm yesterday, or to do with the fact that we only had 4 lectures in total (1 less than the amount we had PER DAY FOR THREE DAYS in O&G) but I like to see it as a sign. Furthermore 3/4 of the lectures were really good, and I did feel sorry for the 4th guy who lectured us at 9am this morning.
Guy, Dr Earlystart perhaps: OK Guys so let's make this interactive
Us: mumblecheesetoastymumble
Earlystart: Who can think of any reasons why children have different physiology to grown-ups
Us: *tumbleweed*
Earlystart: Anyone at all....
...
Earlystart: OK so lets start with the lungs, what's different in the lungs?
Us: *light coughing from the back somewhere*
Earlystart: Does anyone know anything about young lungs?
Us: *blank faces*
Earlystart: Does anyone even know what lungs are?
Us: *blank, if not blanker faces*
Earlystart: Well f**k you then I'm going on to the powerpoint.
OK, so in reality he didn't REALLY say f**k you.
His word lacked the asterixes.
Of course, O&G did TRY to ruin my otherwise happiness and love filled day yesterday when I attempted to hand in my (mostly empty, and optimally coffee stained) log book.
Girl with cool glasses, Glassina McBlind I believe her name was: Sorry you need to get a photocopy of the book
Me: Oh so do I keep the book and give you a photocopy?
McBlind: No we need the real book
Me: Well I don't need a photocopy, I've seen enough of it, it reminds me of the bible, only somehow it is LESS interesting
McBlind: Yes but we need proof you have all the signatures
Me: Well *snort* for one, of COURSE i have all signatures, who do you think I am (I have NO signatures, more or less, but shhh), and for two surely that's the point of you having the book
McBlind: We might lose the book
Me: Isn't that your problem?
McBlind: You're so hot when you make cogent points
Me: Let's do it here, on the photocopier
McBlind: *gets naked*
Sorry I forget how the conversation really ended because the steams of rage have clouded my memories. Certainly there was no blood on my shirt when I came to my senses hours later... well after I'd washed it off that is. Anyway I like to think that at some point she said 'do you own a photocopier' so I could have said 'Own THIS' and sworn at her with my finger in a grown up fashion.
Will I be as chipper after an 8:30 start at Derby tomorrow, well you'll have to wait and see...
P.S. In other news I got my tyres fixed by the aptly named Mr Tyre (this one I didn't even make up!) today and, yes, it cost me £20, and yes, it was cos some LITTLE SHIT had put a nail in my tyre, but the experience was nothing if not pleasant and so I applaud you, Mr Tyre. May you shine like a thousand suns in next years eponymous company awards.
Wrong!
In your FACE!
So paediatrics is going well so far. Yes, this may have to do with the fact that we got a lie in until 2pm yesterday, or to do with the fact that we only had 4 lectures in total (1 less than the amount we had PER DAY FOR THREE DAYS in O&G) but I like to see it as a sign. Furthermore 3/4 of the lectures were really good, and I did feel sorry for the 4th guy who lectured us at 9am this morning.
Guy, Dr Earlystart perhaps: OK Guys so let's make this interactive
Us: mumblecheesetoastymumble
Earlystart: Who can think of any reasons why children have different physiology to grown-ups
Us: *tumbleweed*
Earlystart: Anyone at all....
...
Earlystart: OK so lets start with the lungs, what's different in the lungs?
Us: *light coughing from the back somewhere*
Earlystart: Does anyone know anything about young lungs?
Us: *blank faces*
Earlystart: Does anyone even know what lungs are?
Us: *blank, if not blanker faces*
Earlystart: Well f**k you then I'm going on to the powerpoint.
OK, so in reality he didn't REALLY say f**k you.
His word lacked the asterixes.
Of course, O&G did TRY to ruin my otherwise happiness and love filled day yesterday when I attempted to hand in my (mostly empty, and optimally coffee stained) log book.
Girl with cool glasses, Glassina McBlind I believe her name was: Sorry you need to get a photocopy of the book
Me: Oh so do I keep the book and give you a photocopy?
McBlind: No we need the real book
Me: Well I don't need a photocopy, I've seen enough of it, it reminds me of the bible, only somehow it is LESS interesting
McBlind: Yes but we need proof you have all the signatures
Me: Well *snort* for one, of COURSE i have all signatures, who do you think I am (I have NO signatures, more or less, but shhh), and for two surely that's the point of you having the book
McBlind: We might lose the book
Me: Isn't that your problem?
McBlind: You're so hot when you make cogent points
Me: Let's do it here, on the photocopier
McBlind: *gets naked*
Sorry I forget how the conversation really ended because the steams of rage have clouded my memories. Certainly there was no blood on my shirt when I came to my senses hours later... well after I'd washed it off that is. Anyway I like to think that at some point she said 'do you own a photocopier' so I could have said 'Own THIS' and sworn at her with my finger in a grown up fashion.
Will I be as chipper after an 8:30 start at Derby tomorrow, well you'll have to wait and see...
P.S. In other news I got my tyres fixed by the aptly named Mr Tyre (this one I didn't even make up!) today and, yes, it cost me £20, and yes, it was cos some LITTLE SHIT had put a nail in my tyre, but the experience was nothing if not pleasant and so I applaud you, Mr Tyre. May you shine like a thousand suns in next years eponymous company awards.
Monday, 21 September 2009
O&G, easy as 1-2-3 (Part 1)
A brief background, if I a may...
Much has happened in my 2 years of being a medical student, some of it superbly gratifying, a little of it terribly sobering but most of it highly embarrassing. Highlights before O&G included;
Much has happened in my 2 years of being a medical student, some of it superbly gratifying, a little of it terribly sobering but most of it highly embarrassing. Highlights before O&G included;
- stopping an entire room of doctors in their tracks by suggesting a good way to deal with a patient's annoying relative might be to 'stab them in the face'
- reducing an onlooking team of students to tears of mirth as, when faced with an arresting (that means about to die) simulated patient, I breathed a sigh of disapproval, rolled my eyes, and placed my hands firmly on my hips as if so say 'well dang', before leaving them to die. When I say die, of course, I mean DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AS IT WAS A COMPUTER, PEOPLE *cough* yes...
- playing Phil Collin's 'Against All Odds' at high volumes on my iPhone to help a fellow student through the stresses of having his blood taken, then turning to notice the 10 or so horrified nursing staff glaring at me. Obviously they were not fans of the Philster, heathens.
These situations, and the many others that I either have forgotten or have blocked out, trifle though in comparison to the events during Obs and Gynae.
Of course, O&G would always be challenging. Firstly because I'm a boy, and girls seem less than keen on having boys examine their 'sensitive areas', least of all when there's something wrong with them, and secondly because my ex-girlfriend had excelled at O&G and, as my only reason for existence is to better her in every way possible, I HAD to succeed.
N.B. To those girls who think that boys enjoy looking at their 'bits' - We really don't, they're pretty minging at the best of times, and when there's goo coming out (and, in O&G there is ALWAYS goo coming out), well, it's not hard to keep those naughty thoughts hidden away. I assure you.
So, on the first day we are introduced to each other by the wonderful Dr Wonderful, who, upon learning I was putting on a show, even suggested the whole group came on an O&G trip (Reaction: Please god no, I'd rather die). We were all relieved to know that someone as lovely has her would be looking after us for the whole attachment.
Well until she went on holiday the following week.
And then left to work at a different hospital when she got back.
But this was fiiiiine as Dr Yettoexist would take over and provide a seamless transition for us when he was hired... eight weeks later.
We were then handed timetables of our allocated consultants' whereabouts at any given time and told to 'go forth into the hospital'. Little known to us was the fact that knowing where the consultants were did not necessarily mean that you were supposed to be there, which on retrospect might have been obvious in some cases '10:30-11:30pm Wife Shagging, 11:30pm - 6:00am Sleep'
Once we had established the things we were expected to attend then all was dandy. Well, except that the clinic you had cycled an hour to get in for was often cancelled. If it wasn't cancelled then 30 other students from other, bizarrely disparate, hospitals would have arrived before you and you'd be turned away. If, by some luck, neither situation occurred, and the clinic was your oyster, as it were, then you might get to see a patient - if they didn't turn you away because they were religious (which they sometimes were), under the age of 16 (which they worryingly often were) or were just plain stubborn (which they ALWAYS were).
Part 2 to come after I go to a lecture, or perhaps when I'm IN the lecture, because I'm that much of a rebel.
Starts & Beginnings
So I am, as you must surely all know, a medical student. One of thousands in the UK who spends the majority of their life pretending they are in some way special, and using their prized stethoscope to try and get laid.
Such attempts invariably result in failure.
After a, let us say, eventful Obstetrics & Gynaecology module (that's Babies and Vaginas for you lay-folke) it was suggested that I note down my various hilarious (and/or emotionally crushing) escapades in some kind of log. After investigating alogs, and getting frankly nowhere, I have turned to a blog in the hope of more success.
I hope you enjoy my stories as much as my drunken and very easily amused colleagues did last night, at the pub.
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