Guys, I’m basically a doctor.
Ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration but I have actually seen
real patients and totally been able to take their history and examine them and
work out what is wrong with them. So yeah, this week has been pretty exciting.
I spent all of it in hospital and learnt how to take a history and do a cardiovascular
examination. On Monday they got actors in and we got to practice on them. The
next day we were taken onto wards where there were real ill people and got to
talk to and examine them in groups with doctors there to help if we did it
wrong. Then on Thursday they were split us into pairs and were just like “right,
off you go into the hospital and find yourself a patient with a cardiovascular problem
and examine and take their history and then present it to us tomorrow.” They
didn’t give us any guidance where to go or anything so we just had to wander
around the wards and try and find someone all on our own and it was really
scary but at the same time cool because it felt like being a real life doctor.
I also got to walk around a lot with my stethoscope around my neck and feel
cool.
I am now into the second day of my nine day weekend. That’s
right, I have 9 days off in a row, what of it? We had to be split into two
groups to do our clinical placements and I was the first group and all this
week the second group are doing it so I get to do nothing. I really need a
project to or something to do for this week, maybe I’ll write a story or
something. I might hit the charity shops and find a good book, I think I would
like to read Catch 22 or A Brave New World but anything will do really.
On Saturday I went to Occupy Bristol. It was really cool
even though only around 150 were there. I had a chat to lots of people and they
were all nice, I also got given about a million papers by the Socialist Worker’s
Party. I went back again this afternoon and there were still about 26 tents
there from people who camped last night and were planning on camping again
tomorrow. This whole occupy movement that is going on at the moment is quite
exciting. I don’t know if it will lead anywhere but I really hope it does. I
will try and get involved as much as I can and I hope you do too.
