End of 4th year

Hi,


This was the final week of the year, meaning I am finishing my fourth (or 5th if you count intercalation) year of medical school. One year left (or more accurately about 10 months) until I finish medical school, and get to graduate as a doctor, assuming nothing untoward happens in the meantime! I am very sorry for the quality of my posts fizzling out somewhat over the last few months, but time in the hospital, tiredness from too many early mornings and trying to maintain a fun social life has impacted this blog a little. Its a scary thought that (hopefully) this time next year I will be a doctor, despite still feeling as though I don't know anything. Hopefully next year will change some of that and I will feel more prepared by he end!


This year has been brilliant, though. It has been more relaxed than my third year, with a lot less time on hospital wards and on ward rounds, and more time in teaching seminars, clinics and lectures. A shame, as I enjoyed spending time in the hospital, but a different teaching experience doesn't mean that it is bad. I have seen some pretty great things this year, starting off with my elective in Tanzania, where I wrote a post a day. That was very eye opening, seeing the different health needs of the population, and how it was impossible to treat people with no resources. he elective was definitely my favorite part of this year, and I would love to go back to Tanzania some time to help more, when I know more and could be of more use. Throughout this year I have seen some very unusual things, such as the (and I am still amazed by this) GP who put their patient on diamorphine (heroin) for their painful arthritis... Many of the things that I get to see are too brief to mention here, such as some of the fantastic lecturers that we have had (the one obsessed with "eminence based medicine" over "evidence based medicine" comes to mind), or the clinic where the doctor who didn't believe in fibromyalgia was proven correct. Fibromyalgia is a very 'non-specific' disease, causing symptoms of pain and tiredness without many signs that doctors can test for (such as blood results) to prove that it is there. I do believe that this illness exists, but some doctors do not believe these patients and think that these symptoms are being made up for various reasons. I was in a rheumatology clinic with one such doctor, who was acting slightly skeptically towards a woman who had hobbled in on a stick. I was feeling sorry for this woman, who was becoming more and more frustrated with the doctor who, while not bluntly coming out with his disbelief, was acting in a way which showed his skepticism. After she left, we could hear her bad mouthing the doctor to the nurse outside the consultation room, telling the nurse how poorly she had been treated and how she felt that the doctor was not taking her seriously. A few minutes later, as the doctor was dictating the patient notes to send to the GP, the nurse cam running in to point out the lady who had left the hospital and was now standing on the street, visible through the windows in the consultation room. She had hobbled out slowly to the zebra crossing, looked around her, then tucked her stick under her arm and strolled off at a happy pace, clearly miraculously cured. The doctor enjoyed this 'victory' proving that fibromyalgia patients were just benefit frauds, but I think that some people just choose to exploit this 'unprovable' disease for their own gains, which ruins those with the disease's help.


Anyway, I digress, I was just trying to point out how there are so many stories that I get to be party to as a medical student, but do not have the time to put into this blog. As well as all the hospital experiences, writing this blog is also very rewarding. Thank you for all of your lovely and constructive comments, which help me keep writing, and show me that it is actually useful for some people. Less thanks go out to all the spam that I keep having to delete, though some of it is pretty funny in its own right. I copy one I deleted off of last week's post below.


Viagra is an oral medication for the treatment of male impotence.
Infertility (or expansive dysfunction) is settled as the inability to achieve or reassert an building comfortable for sexed relation, and includes the unfitness to get an erection as a termination of sexy stimulant or to regress your construction preceding to exclamation.
I really like the fact that they seem to have translated it from another language, changing 'erection' into 'construction' and 'building'. 


Anyway, I will be back late August when my final year starts, I am currently with a group of friends on holiday for a week, and I am volunteering at the olympics later, lots to keep me busy until next term. Thanks for reading this year, and I hope it is still interesting/useful for you.


Enjoy the sun!