The more you put in, the more you get out...

...or at least that's what we're told about our placements this year. In reality, it seems that what you get out of your placement is down to how lucky you are with your consultants and registrars. I must say before I sound like I'm complaining that everyone on my placement has been really friendly and welcoming, which has been lovely. Unfortunately, I think I was spoiled by being paired with a really confident and encouraging reg in my first fortnight and now I'm not working with her (she's doing stints on AMAU, night shifts etc) I feel like things are a little bit dull. I think it's partly because we've also been very understaffed recently, and of course it's much quicker and easier to just do something than to supervise your medical student through it. I've just felt like recently I haven't had any opportunities to think. I actually look forward to consultant ward rounds because I know I'll get a grilling and will have to think a bit and most likely learn something too. I accidentally started a bit of a debate on Twitter at the weekend when I said this placement was making me not look forward to my FY jobs. 140 characters is pretty limited, so sometimes getting your point across is difficult. I think that what I was (admittedly rather inarticulately) trying to say was that there doesn't seem to be much opportunity to actually use your brain as a fifth year and I'm worried next year will be similar. Hopefully it's just a bad time on the ward with staffing etc and this isn't reflective of what my jobs will be like... Sorry for the rant there!

I'm A Terrible Blogger!

v note with some shock that it's been 3 months since my last update. Time has flown by pretty quickly and I'm now over 25% of the way through my final year in student-ville. I've been pretty busy so here's a brief update:

- I got back from my elective 2 weeks ago. A couple of months in New Zealand flew by ridiculously quickly. I had a fantastic time there, the people are super friendly, the country is beautiful and I learned loads on my hospital placement. I was based in paediatrics and got loads of hands on experience, including sticking venflons in neonates - something decidedly easier than I'd expected it to be. I'm seriously considering moving out there for specialist training. There were quite a lot of British registrars at the hospital and it's apparently pretty easy to get jobs.

- I have a job!! On 15th September I unfortunately didn't get offered a job in the first offers round, but was placed on the waiting list by two deaneries. However a couple of days later I got an offer for an acamic medical job. After briefly considering what to do, I decided to accept. I've already spoken to one of the consultants I've worked a lot with and he said he's happy for me to do the academic part of my job in paeds, so I'm super happy.

- At the moment I'm on placement in gastroenterology ward. I'm actually really enjoying it and it's been really good for showing me what I know and what I still need to learn. I've also got to do a few practical procedures; last week I got to put in a paracentesis drain which was pretty cool. However, what scares me about this placement is that the first two weeks have already flown by and there are only 6 before the Chr!stm@s holidays, when I'll technically be half was through the year. Terrifying.

Anyway, those are the major updates. I shall attempt to blog more regularly from now on, although no doubt my posts will be more medicine and less job related now the AFP is secured.

xxx