Confessions of a Clinical Student...

Yep, I've finally entered the world of clinical medicine... and it's SO much better than preclinicals - at least the first two weeks have been!

So far at Oxford we've had an introductory two weeks of 'med-ed' - this is where we're introduced to the basics of history-taking and functional examinations by final year medical students (6th years). It was a really fun two weeks, as not only did we get to grips with all the different types of examinations, but it was also really useful to listen to the wise words of the 6th years, over which bits of the course are interesting and which bits are *cough* not as important... lol!

Currently we're on a 3 week hospital attachment - I'm doing renal medicine and oncology. I'm currently doing a week and a half of oncology, getting to grips with working on the wards, following SHOs and nurses around and not really knowing anything that's going on!! We had to do a nursing shift as well as part of our intro course - mine was from 7.30am till 3.30pm, and I was literally half asleep when I stumbled onto the ward at 7am... lol I soon woke up though, and it was really interesting and educational to actually do a nurses job and see the wide range of tasks they have to do, from basics like washing/feeding patients all the way up to more complicated things like taking 'obs' - monitoring of BP, pulse rate, temp, etc.

So far although the week is pretty packed with 9-5s everyday including lectures and ward teaching, the weekends are pretty much free. A lot of people tend to go away for the weekend, and with london being only a cheap (and not so long) coach ride away, it's quite a good way to get out and about.

However one thing I've immediately noticed is that there's a lot more going on in Oxford than in Cambridge - Oxford tends not to revolve so much around the university as Cambridge does, and it definitely has more of a 'city' feel. Even though term hasn't started yet, the clubs are pretty packed, and the nightlife reasonably busy (nowhere near London standards though, obviously)!

At the moment I've just been ironing shirts (it always takes longer than you think it will - warning to all you guys out there) and just generally recovering from my fri and sat night antics... will be posting again soon!

Kief