Yes, so it's a little late...

I appreciate that resolutions are meant to be made on January 1st, but I was hungover then. So when I sat down to attempt to start revision with some equally dedicated colleagues, we skipped the work part and made lists of how to be better. Here goes...

New Year’s Resolutions

Be elegantly inebriated – no accidental sexual hiccoughs, bad text messages or conversation that will be regrettable the following morning.

Replace some 5th/Tarts nights out with classy Northern Quarter visits with aim of meeting new people and securing at least one date (however bad) a month.

Aim to reduce caloric intake from alcohol and avoid particular drinks that may cause “lairy” behaviour or any other undesired effect.

Do minimum of two exercise sessions a week (dancing in clubs does not count, even if thighs hurt the next day from acrobatic, over-ambitious porn-star-esque moves).

No skiving due to hangovers, regardless of epic boy trauma, notification of clinical partners whilst under the influence (of alcohol and/or each other), or fabulously concocted excuses.

Be aloof, poised, fabulous and sophisticated with not a hint of bitterness (at least when not in the privacy of our own homes).

Live within our means. There is no justification for £18 bottles of Jack Daniels, eight pairs of new shoes in two weeks even if they are in the sale, or ridiculous items from the kitchenware aisle of Tesco.

Aim to eat three proper and healthy meals a day. Cut out late night fast food and overpriced deli sandwiches (just because you can’t be arsed to make a packed lunch) and eat at least four portions of fruit and veg a day. Plus, drink loads and loads of water and green tea, cos it’s good for you.


To summarise… drink less and be better.

Also, do not allow oneself to be led astray by less dedicated members of the trio.

(The 8 pairs of shoes were mine. But they were really pretty...)

She died.

It wasn't the first crash call I'd been to. Whilst on placement at a DGH I went with the crash team to the gastro ward and watched them pump a very jaundiced man full of adrenaline and needles, and defibrillate his heart. However, he regained a pulse. Albeit briefly (he was expected to 'go off' again soon, but the decision was made not to attempt resus for a second time). The patient was old. He was very ill, with metastatic cancer. Somehow, it was ok.

This time was different. I was working in A & E, and the paramedics brought her in, one of them doing compressions as they moved the trolley. She was rushed into our cubicle in resus, and I took over compressions. I've taught CPR for a while now, but it's the first time I've ever done it in real life. It feels different, and there's no reassuring click when you're in the right place. But the major difference is that she was so high off the floor. I'm used to being down on my knees, using my weight over the dummy. I'm only small, I was struggling to get enough force into it and it was exhausting. Luckily this gave me something to think about so I didn't think too much about her. I stepped back, they checked her rhythm; asystole. Bad. My clinical partner took over. I stepped back and watched my consultant stick a central line in. I heard the paramedics talking to us, telling us how her son had found her at home. My partner and I swapped a few more times, she was still in asystole, and then as I was continuing compressions and starting to realise that we were going to stop soon, that it was hopeless, they let in the patient's son and mother. It was heartbreaking. He was wailing, screaming, holding her hand beside me as I was thinking that I was doing it wrong and not able to reach and his Mum (same age as mine) was dying beneath me and he was younger than me...

She was 47. No previous illness, no family history, no warning. He just came back from Uni and found her on the floor.

47.

Her husband arrived as we stopped.

Her daughter was upstairs on the maternity ward, 37 weeks pregnant with twins, admitted to reduce her stress levels.

She was just 47.

Feet.

I've just got back to my base hospital after a few weeks at a DGH, and it sucks. We have one designated ward instead of free run to go find relevant patients, and they allow us to sign up for half day sessions in various other departments and clinics. It would be a great system, if it weren't for the fact that there are 75 of us fighting it out for the same 8 slots. I made the mistake of leaving my sign-ups to my first week back. All I've been able to get is one lousy foot clinic. Feet. Joy.

On the positive side this has meant that I have a very empty timetable, to be filled with reading, catching up and maybe an extra ward session (I'm on A&E so these can be a bit hit and miss).

Or, I can sleep, go out and catch up with the people I've been separated from for the past 6 weeks, drink some gin and sleep some more.

There has been gin.

Maybe I won't be a nurse after all

Some days I love medicine.

Last week I had 5 of them days in a row. I loved every minute on the wards. Well, actually, no, I don't think I can say that I loved the cardiac arrest I attended. But I loved watching the doctors do their work, all having a designated task, and I loved it when the patient got a pulse back, albeit briefly.

I loved my time on A and E, particularly getting to suture someone's scalp. It was my first time stitching anything (my Mum was upset I'd never learnt embroidery when I was telling her how much I'd enjoyed it). It was medicine at it's most practical and logical- this guy's head has been split from having a lift fall on his head, sew it back together so you can't see the bone and it'll all be fine.

I also went to a phlebotamy clinic and stuck some needles in people. I can't say how much I appreciate the people that let me have a go, a shaky, red-faced little girl with a sharp object going in your arm... I'm reluctant to let the professionals do it.

Then I saw some bronchoscopies. Now they were brutal. People who had looked fairly well ten minutes previously, writhing in pain and choking. Didn't like that so much. But the pictures were interesting, and my consultant is an excellent teacher.

All in all, a fabulous week. Bring on another!

Got to love old people...

They do come out with some gems once in a while. I've had a few bloody awful homecare shifts of late, and sometimes that little thing that makes you laugh is all you need to get you through to the end of the day. This particular weekend one of my regulars (an 84yr old Jamaican man) was in bed whilst I had a chat with him.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked.
"No, I don't have time." I answered. It's my standard response. I regularly get asked the same question. Or if I'm married with children.
"Good girl. You concentrate on your studies. But do you not ever get hungry for the boys?"

Brilliant. Perhaps you need the gesticulations to fully appreciate how hard I had to try to not laugh.

I want to be a Nurse

I'm on 'interprofessional experience week' at the minute. I've been spending my time shadowing nurses, support workers, phlebotamists, dieticians, healthcare assistants and occasionally, a doctor or two. I've been trying to keep my distance from them in case they ask me anything I don't know. Because actually, it turns out there's an awful lot I don't know. I've lost all confidence in my abilities as a medical student; everyone else seems to be able to ramble off some scientific gobbledegook at the appropriate moment and I just nod and smile. All drug names that I've ever come across roll into one, and the only thing I can remember is whether or not I've written out repeat prescriptions for them at the doctors surgery I worked at two-and-a-half years ago. I have absolutely no idea what I'm expected to have learnt over the past two years, where all this knowledge has run away to and how I'm supposed to get it back.

I have realised that I quite like nursing. I like spending time with the patients, the idea of them calling you by your name and being comfortable enough to tell you things without necessarily expecting you to know the answers. I like the routine tasks, like making hospital beds and dishing out lunches. And after this summer, I can deal with urine, faeces and bed-bathing old people. I like the sense of sorority amongst the staff team, and the bitching about the doctors (because they really do).

I think I'm in the wrong profession. Tomorrow I'm shadowing a social worker, and I think I'll like that one too. Speech and language therapy looks interesting. Anything but medicine right now.

Responsibilities

I am feeling old.

It is Freshers week. Everyone is young and carefree, and I have been in a bad mood. This has been caused by a number of factors, including:

a) It's dandelion season. That's daddy-long-legs to anyone but me. I have a complete phobia, and there was one in the car with me the other day. I cried. Which leads me to...

b) Emotions. I am incredibly fluctuant at the moment, with giggle fits and crying in public becoming increasingly common. Unknown origin, hoping to dear god I'm not pregnant.

c) Getting up on Sunday morning to discover my tyres had been slashed, then having to cancel my home care shift in order to sit in Kwik Fit and have the pleasure of paying them to fix it. Conveniently linked to...

d) Lack of money. I got my loan in August, and as I am terrible with money I have spent most of it. I earnt a small fortune this summer, what with my two summer schools (thinking about it, only one has paid me... hmmm), casual work on campus, and washing old ladies for 15 hours a day. I'm still well below the zero mark. Sigh.

There've been a few other minor things too. I think it's all getting a bit much at the moment. Perhaps starting back at uni (and being a third year 'student doctor') is just taking some getting used to. I had to learn to take bloods the other day. Bearing in mind I was scared of the video where they showed someone taking blood from a fake rubber arm, I've not been looking forward to having to do it on real people! On Monday I start what used to be known as 'nursing week' but is now known as 'interprofessional experience'. I'm really looking forward to it, despite being on Renal Medicine and hating anything to do with kidneys. I recently did my training to be an HCA, and was absolutely appalled by how little I learnt, therefore I am going to utilise this week to shadow someone and find out what the hell I'm supposed to do when I turn up for my first shift.

Here's to hoping they don't make me do anything important...