It's definitely more clinical this year!
Practical Skills:
This is where we get split into smaller groups and practice either on models, or.. each other! We had four sessions altogether, and managed to refresh ourselves on previous skills, like taking a blood pressure, and measuring blood sats.. and all the new stuff:
- Taking blood
- Putting in a cannula
- Inserting a catheter
- Opthalmoscopy
- Otoscopy
all in all.. a lot of fun! Although i seemed confident doing it on a plastic model.. i'm sure i will be less so when i actually have to take blood from an actual patient for the first time... only 2 weeks till im off to my first firm!
Clinical skills:
This was embarrassing! On our very first session we got split into pairs within our small groups, and had to take a patient history. I was taking the patient history, and my friend acted as the patient. This was fine, i asked all the appropriate questions starting with his name, age and occupation, and took a full history....
....now here is the embarrassing part...!! >.<
The consultant who was taking the class comes to our group, and gathers the "students" and asks us to present the patient.. I was picked first...and so.. off i went:
T:"This is *insert friend's name*, a 21 year old... " - Consultant stops me here, "NO!, next" and looks at the person next to me.... (eeeks! what? what have i done wrong?!) he goes around the group asking questions, and gets back to me:
C: "Tofu, what is the occupation of the patient"
T: "He is a medical student"
C: " NO! he works in a supermarket!"
T: " But the patient told me he was a medical student.."
C: "Tofu, what is the occupation of the patient"
T: "He is a medical student"
C: " NO! he works in a supermarket!"
T: " But the patient told me he was a medical student.."
- this was when we all looked at my partner...and he fessed up... he basically didn't read the scenario properly, and didn't realise he was meant to be Mr Jones, a 23 year old supermarket worker!!
Haha, in hindsight it was pretty funny, but at the time i was just cringing at getting all the simple things wrong in front of everyone >.<
Communication skills:
In communication skills we learnt how to take a patient history, and then practised doing so with pretty convincing actors! It's a lot harder than it looks!! It seems easy in principle, to go through the checklist and make sure you ask all the appropriate questions, but i found myself closing down my open questions as soon as i've asked them...
The most embarrassing moment was when i had to ask the "patient" if she had recently had sex. I'm unsure why i found it so awkward (Well the tutor and the entire group was observing me) and it went "er..... when was the last time you er..... er..... er..... *10 seconds later*... had sexual intercourse?"
Next Week: CSP
7 lectures a day... every day apart from Wednesday...
coffee?.. YES PLEASE!
