Loon Grinning

Be aware, the loon grinning has set it, and it won't go away for a while.  It may even be contagious.  You have been warned.  The loon grinning commenced last week on placement when the GP I was sat in with said, "Oooh, that's a nice mitral regurgitation murmur, do you mind if the student Doctor has a listen?"  (Don't worry, the patient has had it for a while and knew about it, that wasn't how the news was broken.)  I got to use my stethoscope on a real person for the first time ever! A real, sick, patient kind of person, not a medic friend I'm practising on.  Placement continued with listening to breath sounds for asthma, squeezing a huge sebaceous cyst (as big as a £2 coin), chatting to a Dr come in for a referral, and talking to a very charming lady who confirmed she ate a very good diet, elaborating that it consisted of no breakfast or lunch, a packet of Dolly Mixtures a day and a ready meal every evening.  It was really busy morning clinic and so interesting to see all the different types of cases.  The Dr was open to questions and at one stage even went out into the waiting room to see if she could drum up any more patients for us to see before we left.  I get the most from placement seeing the interaction between the patient and the Dr.  I like to see if there's any phrases or ways of handling and approaching things I can pick up in a monkey-see-monkey-do kind of way.  It really helps to put all the studying into perspective.  I'm studying for something.  One day this will be me.  It's like all access work experience and I'm still as excited as a little kid at al the opportunities I get.

In clinical skills we learnt how to do gastrointestinal exams.  Happy to say I have a liver, I have felt it. :)  We have competencies coming up after the Easter holidays where we have to do a combine cardiovascular, respiratory gastrointestinal exam - running them all together in the end of the bed, fingertips up to the head and down to the toes prescribed format.  This will be interesting because we have 10 minutes to do it and it took the demonstrator 15 when she showed us at full speed....

We only had one normal two week case block and now we have started another SSU.  I have been allocated  'The Impact of Eczema on Children and their Families'.  I've been attached to the dermatology ward and when I went for my contact session today she gave me a timetable for the rest of the week.  I'm in clinics everyday.  It's AMAZING!!!!!  There were a couple of optional sessions in there, like tomorrow morning.  She said "if you like you can come in tomorrow, get changed into some scrubs and observe some minor surgery.  It'll mainly be removing skin cancers and depending on where it is you can do some suturing if you like.  You don't have to come in though if you don't want, you can have a free morning."  Would I like to come and observe and do stitching? HELL YEAH!!!!!  Seriously, I am so excited.  I have not stopped grinning, and the little bean inside me is bouncing up and down like you wouldn't believe.  She had me at scrubs to be honest, I love a bit of dress up.  I've got some general clinics, some phototherapy, some patch testing and possibly a trip onto the wards to see some inpatients with skin complaints.  And this is just week 1!  I have 2 more weeks of this.