Catchup

Well this week seemed to go by very quickly, I meant to blog much sooner.  This week I have returned to normal with case units and standard lecture patterns, so that's been nice.  We have new PBL groups, and the first session went well, so I'm hopeful.  I was strange because everyone came to the session all used to doing things differently, ad the facilitator was no different.  We are supposed to sit down and work out our own group rules *Yawn* but she was full of "this is how my groups have done it in the past and it worked so this is what we shall do, happy? Right, good continue".  It seemed to work well, although I still don't understand the merits of electing one of the group to be chairperson, as it works just as well with everyone chipping ideas in and being equal.

Also this week I have done my second AMK, and this one counts for something.  I think (pray/hope....) I have done better on it than last time.  I answered more questions and felt a bit more confident.  Some of them I know from talking to others I definitely got right, and there are some that I chickened out of answering because I wasn't 100% sure, but have since found out I was right which is frustrating.  For revision I re-read topics I knew might come up that we had done and I had become hazy over, and I went through some bits of Crash Course in General Medicine which has chapters called Patient Presents With and then common symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath.  It tells you what it might be and what you should do about it, and just picking at that I found gave me answers to some of the questions, and a few of the ones I had an inkling about but wasn't totally sure, so I think it's a good revision idea for next time.

I had an academic tutor meeting, which left me quite frustrated.  My academic tutor grades my Portfolio Assessments: the one I said I waffled through about Independent Learning.  For grading, you can either get unsatisfactory, borderline, satisfactory or excellent.  She gave me a satisfactory, which ordinarily I would be fine with - I'm happy it's a pass.  However, she went through my essay and marked everywhere where I had ticked off a requirement in the mark scheme.  Since I wrote it to the mark scheme I had all the points ticked off which she was very pleased with, but I didn't get an excellent, because apparently she had a mark scheme in her head that I didn't correspond with.  What now?  I'm perfect for the medical school's required standard, but not to the one he made up?  I understood the points she made and agree my essay was lacking in those areas, but it's still annoying.  I may be a little bit of a perfectionist... in case you hadn't spotted.

Mr came down because he had some free time he hadn't anticipated and it was so nice to wake up with him in the mornings and come home and tell him all about my day.  We didn't do anything terribly exciting as I had work and lectures but it was still lovely to have him around.  Finally, I went rowing this morning on a really long outing and have so many blisters my poor hands are shredded.  I'm not looking forward to clinical skills on Tuesday because I think we are learning how to scrub up for surgery and I really don't want to have to wash my hands too many times, or let alcohol hand gel go anywhere near them. Shampoo in the shower was bad enough.  I shall go bathe them in moisturiser to try and get them to heal in time.  Hope you had a lovely weekend.