Wannabe Medic

Quite frankly I'd rather be at work but HAY. But here's to wishing everyone else a great day filled with lots of goodies, laughs and those moments you'll look back on when you're old and wrinkly.

Sorry guys, prepare yourself for an extremely long post but I promise it ends with a bang (almost literally).  My first nights on this ward were… exhausting, eventful and eye-opening. Don't get me wrong, they don't have to be that bad and actually the work load is much much lighter than the days but throw in a few difficult patients and suddenly the will to live is sapped out of you. Night 1 : I have Charlie (one of my favourite staff nurses) and a student nurse working with me. This first night really showcases how good a shift can be if you have staff of real excellence to work with. I make the tea's, I hand them out, I clear up, I do the toilet checks and care rounds, and then I make a brew and do nothing from 11pm-5am. May be change the bins, obs on any new admissions, keeping the care rounds up to date and a tiny bit of filing here and there - and that's the work bit of it done, aside answering buzzers.  So the next 6 hours consist of the 3 of ...

Shattered isn't the half of it. I've been assured having 3 long days (shift from 0700-1930) all in one go isn't usual - but this was also my 4 day week so I was literally a walking zombie by the time I opened my front door and collapsed on the sofa last night. It's a really strange feeling doing 3 long days together, working with the same 11 patients (they put me at the "heavy end" at the bottom of the ward for all 3 shifts, and there next to no discharges / admissions so it was pretty much the same people). It's like you live parallel to your patients. As they're waking up, you're waking up to go into work to see them. You then spend all day together. As they go to bed, we're heading out of work to go home to bed ourselves. It's really surreal, I can't explain it very well but it's like my life was totally centered around these patients when you do 3 days together. These shifts should have been the one's that made me want t...

I never really had the opportunity to post about resigning from being a HCA in one hospital, to taking up another position as a HCA in another hospital. Sure, I wrote about it happening, what I hoped it would be like and the induction but it was all rather crazy where the UCAS deadline was over, universities would be receiving our UKCAT scores, drips of interview invitations were being sent - and so you sort of missed the bulk of it. A quick catch up: I'd been working at a hospital a good 2.5 hours away (via public transport - only half an hour drive) since July. It was a cardiology ward, I was only 1 of may be 2 individuals that were an under-40's HCA. It was a very small close knit team. 22 beds. I'd handed in my resignation at the beginning of October, and officially started at my local (absolutely humongous) hospital on the 11th of November. My first shifts were a week later and here we are, about a month on. So the first question will be, do you prefer the new plac...

The strangest thing happened when I came across a university blog... it was both endearing and quirky and is the sort of blog that makes you want to look up everything that's mentioned: most notably, brand names and places to visit. Then...I realised it was being written by a girl that I went to school with!! Crazy small world. So, feeling inspired, I thought I'd give this blog a revamp. You can now post comments anonymously too... hope you like the new look. Need to come up with a new URL too so watch out!

I'm obviously very limited in what I can say about the MMI interview I've had at Manchester University - but I felt a lot more positive than after my Liverpool one last year. I think MMI definitely suits me better and I even begun to really enjoy it by the end. There were some eyebrow raising moments as some stations were not what I expected but all in all - I have my fingers crossed and haven't given up all hope. It turns out re-applicants aren't as rare as I thought either. Out of the 7 in my group, another 2 where also reapplicants... one of them had a jaw-dropping UKCAT of 850. I decided not to mention my score... Leeds University have been messing me around from day one. I love the University, I think it's a wicked course and I am truly gutted that I will not be attending there come September. I haven't been rejected yet, but it is impending as I am apparently in the 7th decile (bottom 30%) for my academics and top 30% for my UKCAT. So - how am I in t...