Litter Picks

Previously I have blogged on employment and unemployment previously before. I am revisiting this pattern of though because of a Lord Digby who believes that the unemployed should be made to do litter picks before they can pick up there benefits. Is this a good idea?

Personally I think it is, but I am biased. I have spent my holidays doing various jobs because I needed money. After wiping bottoms in one job and looking after teenagers in another I am constantly annoyed when I hear people saying they can't find work. Am I judging them? Yes, I am wrong to do so and I am annoyed at myself that I am judging people.

But I just cant help but get annoyed. The home I worked at had vacancies that were well advertised in an area of some unemployment. But no one wanted to do it, perhaps they think it is beneath them? I didn't think it was beneath me and I learnt alot from working there.

The other job was only for four week, it was all students who were doing the jobs - this compancy still had vacancies going. It was not advertised exclusively on student websites, I found it on the jobcentre website. But why only students doing it? Are we not all useless bum who do sod all?

GET SMASHED!

Apologies to people who have seen the header and thought I had gone off the rails or something. This is a memory tool to help memorise the causes of pancreatitis (G-Gallstones,E-Ethanol,T-Trauma,S-Steroids,M-Mumps,A-Autoimmune,S-Scorpion and Snake Venom,H-Hypocalcaemia,E-ECPR,D-drugs

This was found on wikipedia when the FM was unable to list more than two cause of pancreatitis when being questioned by an FY1.

This is what medicine does to you, it reduces you to learning lots of mnemonics. Maybe I am starting to sympathise with a consultant who argued that the tragedy of medical school is that it turns bright teenagers into robots. Am I going to be a robot? Maybe this is a good thing, people make mistakes and being a robot means you will always be able to fall back onto a routine, a safety net as such.
Are we all going to be robotised, like most things in life everything seems to be becoming a tick-box routine?

Who to Vote for?

The Fuddled Medic is slightly confused. At the last election things were simply, the FM was not allowed to vote. The FM stilled followed politics and was relatively right wing and wanted a conservative government. That did not happen, if it did the NHS would have been carved up even more and we would have had silly expensive things like the "Patients Passport" idea.

This time the FM can vote and has a postal vote. His vote will be slightly irrelevant as he lives in the countryside and a safe Tory Seat. Do not get me wrong, First pass the post is not perfect but I think its the best out of the lot and does not want to change it.

Anyway, assuming my vote determined who was to win the election? Who should I vote for? I disagree with Labours tendancy to micromanage everything and am appalled at the lack of respect they treat the private sector with. Although not as right wing as a few years ago I do tend towards the idea that the state should leave things alone unless it really, really has to. I have been described as a libertarian in the past, maybe I am.

The Markets are a wonderful thing, but not for everything. This includes the NHS, you simply cannot make money from running and A and E department. The private sector is only interested in simple cases that it can make money for. Unfortunately the conservatives disagree with me, as I now have a "professional" interest in the NHS I am unsure whether or not I can vote for them or not.

I hope I have not made a mistake with this post. I tend to keep my political views to myself (or try to, often failing miserably when provoked over issues like the Iraq war and the Euro), but I hope my dilemma may be of some interest to my half dozen readers

Vote Tory, die of breast cancer

Vote for the Conservatives and if a relative dies of Cancer, we told you so, seems to be the Labour Parties latest pathetic attempt to close the gap on the Conservative Party.

Answers on a Postcard

Medical Students can be very sill at times, including myself. Here is a list of silly things done this week by various people. One of these was done by the Fuddled Medic. Can you guess which one?

1) Suggesting Pelvic Inflammatory Disease as a diagnosis in a 40 year old man
2)Pointing to a hysterectomy scar and confidently stating it was a Masectomy Scar
3)Succesfully taking blood of a patient, then realising your efforts were in vain as you had used the wrong coloured bottless (unfair on the patient, as they needed to be redone)

A very good Idea

Please check this out, its an amazing resource for us all.
Thank you Julie

Hoops

There is a lot of stuff in medicine to learn, no one will ever be able to learn everything. The Fuddled Medic has a reasonably big book ok objectives to get through, some are quite specific, such as "Assess a patient's level of consciousness using the GCS." Others are not - "Describe the pathology of Parkinsons Disease"

The second objective could be answered briefly in three or four lines, alternatively a 1000 word essay could be written. What I need to know is somewhere in the middle. Increasingly the Fuddled Medic is looking through books and thinking "Do I need to know this?" I hate it when I do this but sometimes you have to

As the FM goes through these objectives he hopes that he's finding the right place to stop and draw the line, but comes exams at the end of the term he may be in for a bit of a shock. I hope I have got the balance right.

I suppose my point is that medicine should not be like this, medicine is more then jumping through hoops. And I hate having to jump through a hoop but this is what I've got to do and accept.