It's been a very unproductive long weekend, but I'm optimistic. I just sat down and spent an hour summarising some of the research I've been doing outside the assessable material and it's shaping up quite well. My supervisors and I have put in quite a respectable amount of effort and the good news is that it is amounting to something promising - we're not just farting in the wind; hopefully it'll lead us to higher truth that will help medical students throughout their studies and beyond.
Getting back into the momentum of surgery is exciting, however it's sad that I only have a few days left on the ASU team - two weeks was definitely not enough and given the public holidays, it was more like 7 days. I'll probably make time in the evenings to expose myself to surgical patients again, but that will come in time. Next week, I start Colorectal surgery, which has quite a bit to do with Surgical Oncology and I'm expecting it to shake me up some.
For a change, I'm smiling and for me, that's very unusual.
Let's hope that it doesn't fade quickly and that optimism drives education forward.
Hope with me.
I'd be very interested in hearing more about the research that you're doing - and also, on a random note, more about how you're finding the clinical years.
ReplyDeleteAre you happy with the 'stream' you chose? Do you think it makes a difference which order you do your attachments in? Do you get to put in preferences for your med/surg terms at your hospital? I believe we get to do so in mine, and I'm starting to think about what I'd choose. Is it important to find out what others' experiences have been (ie how good is the team at teaching etc), or should I choose on the basis of what I think will be useful (or, more likely, a combination) - what do you think is most important? As someone else who's interested in general surg/EM, did that affect your preferences? Are you happy with your allocations so far? Anything you wished you'd known earlier?
So far, I'm thinking of something like cardio/resp/endocrinology as preferences for med (because how many patients *don't* have heart disease/COPD/diabetes these days), and general/upper GI/?breast&endo/?colorectal for surgery. Would love your thoughts, whether it's by email (in my blogger profile) or as a more general post.
And finally, it's nice to hear that you're happy! :)