Until

I shall leave you with this, untill my writers block goes

The Ashes

Today and Yesterday something magical happened, England are completely battering Pakistan and it is a joy to watch. The FM does a significant amount of work whilst listening to the cricket, usually as Test cricket is sedate and therefore alot of work is done. However today the FM gave up and just watched it for a couple of hours. Absolute joy to watch. And listenening to Mr Swann arguing that he should stay as englands number eight due to his cool headeness, brilliant.

So are we going to win the Ashes? Probably not, hopefully it will be competitive though.

On Monday it is a Bank holiday, which means a three day weekend and more importantly a four day week afterward. The FM has become rather boring and now lives for routine, or more accurately the weekend.

"Did you have a good weekend FM?"

"Yes thank you, I got lots of sleep and had a nice relaxing time."

The FY1 who was talking to laughed and pointed out that by the end of the day I would be feeling terrible and tired and would be counting down to the next weekend. Indeed I was.

Afraid the FM has been suffering from writers block and therefore has nothing constructive to say, as a result this rambling post was born. Maybe the FM should give herself two weeks of from blogging and have a break from it? Maybe, lets hope my imagination and ability to say something sensible returns shortly

Psychiatry

So here is a review of my psychiatry placement, on the whole its fun and I have enjoyed bits of it but I dont think its for me.

One good point is the ward rounds, or lack of ward rounds. I could very easily get used to the equivalent "ward review" where you get used to patients coming to you, sitting on nice comfy chairs with tea, biscuits etc

ECT was a good eperience. I had mixed feeling before I saw it, having images of people I have seen with epilepsy in my head had made me think it was quite barbaric. But it has been proven to be safe and effective. And after talking to the consultant in charge I can say that I am definitely in favour of ECT, its no more barbaric than half the drugs doctors give to patients or the trauma of surgery.

However psychiatry is far more emotionally draining then either medicine or surgery. After sitting in on clinics my emotions are all over the place. In medicine its important to switch off mentally at the end of the day and with psychiatry I find it harder to do so. Is this me, or is that what working with patients with mental health problems does to you?

In General

GPs are often portrayed as the last of the generalists, from what I have seen this week I would like to respectfully disagree. Well not disagree entirely but present another job that deals with general medicine.

Decided to do something different yesterday and attend a clinic for members of the older generation. I am yet to learn the Politically Correct way of saying geriatric medicine, apparently this is insulting in some way.

What struck me was how similar it was to being a GP, you never knew what would be next, as opposed to a Respiratory clinic (Ah, another case of obstructrive sleep apnea).

Another similarity was dealing with patients who had multiple problems and then trying to prioritise which problem to deal with first. Unlike the rest of this year, this will be the closest I get to "bread and butter medicine" so its all good revision and I hope to make the most of it.

And in the next post I shall be talking about the current attachment and how I'm getting along in Psychiatry . . . . . . .

Personal Responsibility

I have just read this article, a nice thing to do on a Sunday especially in combination to listening to TMS.

One thing that annoyed me though was this paragraph,

But Tam Fry, National Obesity Forum spokesman, suggested Field was being naïve. "If Professor Field wants a world where everyone assumes personal responsibility, he is living a dream. He appears to have forgotten the 35-40% of our population who live in the same obesogenic environment as he does but simply can't cope with it or have long since given up the unequal struggle. They are the people who are quite unequipped to resist the 24/24 battering of junk food promotion and are easy prey for the marketing men."

I am perhaps being a little hard but I think its a little patronising. It implies that 35-40% of our population are incapable of taking personal responsibility. Sorry your too stupid to take resposibility for the fact that you eat to much. Basically me and you can resist the tempatation to go for McDonalds for the masses cant.

Logbook

This post is an apology to all the consultants out there who have signed off Logbooks for Medical students. We ask you questions about your career, your work, your patients and your delighted that we seem to have a genuine interest in your speciality.

But then we bring the conversation to the end by saying "Can you just sign our logbooks please?" Your smile fades as you realise that the students are just making sure they tick the boxes.

Keep an open mind . . . . . .

. . . . . . but not so open that your brain falls out.

A lovely little quote, who originally coined it is open to some debate. The FM has often been accused of being close minded as a result of her opposition to homeopathy. Unfortunately it is not the only situation that she has been accused of being close minded.

People seem to be annoyed when the FM criticised this person.

The FM just hates it when people are taken advantage of, or are led to believe that something is true when it isn't. For instance, its not nice to have the process of grief disrupted by a charlatan.
Hopefully someone wont sue me for saying this