Since I last posted, a few things have happened. Nothing particularly exciting to the outsider looking in I imagine, but for those of us in the fray it was all rather stress inducing - now time to relax with a nice glass of mulled wine and contemplate recent events.
Firstly, hospital choices have been made. The allocations will be announced on Friday (two days from now), or at least that's what the grapevine tells me. In the end I opted thus: RLUH 1st, Chester 2nd, Whiston 3rd. At the time it all made perfect sense, but now the reasoning has gone a little bit fuzzy and I'm not really sure why those were the hospitals I preferred, or why I put them in that particular order. All I can say is that I am happy with my eventual choice, and my fingers are crossed really tight that I get the Royal.
Secondly I found out where I'm placed for paediatrics in the new year: Whiston. The upside is: I definitely get Liverpool Women's for ObGyn. The downside is: there are only two paeds wards in Whiston hospital, and I bet most of the kids will be in with chest infections of some kind. Ah well, you win some you lose some. Fingers crossed the teaching will be good and there'll be more time with the docs compared to the busier Alder Hey.
The verdict on my CTM abstract was also passed today. Chagas disease has got the go ahead, with a few caveats, so it's all systems go to try and get that done before the Christmas holidays - the next deadline is 7th January (less than a week after returning to Uni) and it's called a holiday for a reason, that reason being that I will almost definitely do less than a smidgen of work for the whole two weeks.
The second rotation of Year 3, which is Disability in my case, is drawing to a close. The final GP day was yesterday, or should I say half day as that is all that has been required of us for the whole placement - half a day sitting with the GP, discussing cases and consulting patients. It's been fun. Almost enough fun to make me change my mind about how adverse I am to becoming a General Practitioner myself. Not enough fun to make me actively pursue the career however. I don't know if it was an unfortunate coincidence, or whether the stereotypes really are true, but the majority of patients came in seeking a sick note. In fairness, the majority of them got what they wanted due to a genuine illness, but in some cases the decision was a bit dubious (in my oh, so learned, opinion).
It's terrifying to think that in a matter of weeks it'll be 2011, and everyone will start worrying about revision for written and OSCE exams. This will make me feel guilty if I don't worry, and more stressed if I do. There will only be just over five months until summative exams, and time to jet off for elective. On which note, I have also had my first appointment at the LSTM Well Travelled Clinic. The verdict was mostly that I already have the vaccines I need, and that I should improve my risk assessment. Hey ho, I've got aaaaages to get that done and because it's exciting (in a dull, bureaucratic way) I won't count that as my "less than smidgen" of work over the hols.
Now to crack on with the stuff which actually matters to my future career aspirations: work.
LSTM: Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
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