A Twat

"We don't get the results we should compared with other European countries; if we did we would save thousands of lives," he told the Andrew Marr Show.

This was another pearl of wisdom from Andrew Lansley, a lovely chap who accepts money from the private sector. Probably get sued for saying that.

His above comment seems to suggest that if you oppose his plans then you dont really care about saving thousands of lives. We dont get the same results as other countries, perhaps this is because we smoke and drink more and on the whole as a nation we're quite fat? (and lazy?)

I have yet to meet a medical student who is happy with these plans, indifference or a sense of "oh shit," seem to be prevailing themes

Pressure

The fuddled medic enjoys cricket, particularly working whilst listening to Test Match Special. Indeed the FM shall be up early and doing some Cardiology while hoping England can beat Australia in the 3rd ODI.

But something I want to discuss is based on a comment by ex england captain Michael Vaughan. He argued that as professionals players should be given freedom to train, relax and rest when they want. And that they are in an environment where they are always under pressure, so everyone needs to back off and leave them to it.

Should the same apply to medical student? I resent always having stuff timetable all the time with no flexibility. On Friday I turned up a few minutes late to the lecture due to ward work running over. I did not have the register passed to me, and half an hour later I ran to the office and pleaded to be allowed to be sign in.

It is sad that the medical school and the University dont trust us to learn the stuff we need to learn and lest us get on with it.

And medical school is always full of pointless stuff that makes things more difficult then they need to be. Recently I have completed a one thousand word essay, with a subsequent presentation. Everyone knows its a load of bollocks, but its one more bloody hoop to pass through. Perhaps you believe I have learnt from doing said essay? Well a little, but most of the essay writing was making sure it corresponded with the markscheme and making it easy for the examiner to pass me.



And so my precious time has been wasted, I would have learnt more going to the wards or taking Kumar and Clark to the library and doing some reading.

The vast majority of medical students dont need someone dictating to them how to learn. We are capable of looking at all the different ways of learning and choosing whats best for us.

Please . . .

. . . go and see The King's Speech. I am usually quite generous with my markings when I see a film, but this was a genuinely good 10/10 film.

That is all

Layers

I have seen nothing by David Cameron that fills me with confidence about the future NHS reforms.

But enough of what I think, here I copy and paste some readers comment that I agree with as I cant be bothered to say anthing original about the topic

"This is a gamble because he expects there to be no unfortunate mistakes - embarrassing anomalies etc when the conservatives are transferring 80bn of expenditure in a very short period of time, to multiple consortia. Any decent management consultant will tell you mistakes will be made."

And think of all the paperwork, logo etc that will be generated.

"Now the tories want to replace 150 PCTs with up to 500-600 GP run consortiums. Unless you want your GP spending all day with their head down over a budget spreadsheet or typing up a service level agreement then each one of these will need it's own army of bureaucrats."

Consultants

I have heard stories of some NHS consultants who do the bare minimum NHS work that they can so they can maximise earnings working in the private sector. I am neither for or against this, with regards to private medicine and people working for it, its there choice.

As pointed out by other blog comments on this issue if consultants pay is attacked, then more of them will do this and the NHS will loose out.

Lunch

Yesterday I had a day with the GP, sitting in on surgery and going on home visits. After two visits the GP drove into a pub carpark. Thinking that this was a strange place for a home visit, I got out of the car and walked into the pub.

I think we'll have lunch hear, stated the GP. "Dont't worry its on me."

"Thank you" I erred.

I had a very nice lunch, am glad to think that I made a good impression. Not so this morning at clinic.

"Would you like a cup of tea doctor?" asked a nurse. The doctor said yes and I tried frantically to catch the nurses eye but she was gone. Obviously made a social blunder somewhere. I try whever I can to consume tea, it is a necessary fact of Fuddled Medics Law, which states that. . . .

"the number of cups of tea conusmed in a day is inversely proportional to the size of the stress headache at the end of the day."

Four

Medicine is full of people slagging of other specialities and trying to encourage people to join their discipline. One I heard today was about paediatrics and was that you only saw four types of patients - "Shitters, Pissers, Fitters and Wheezers."

Australians are legendary

Thank you for this Australia

Optimum Age?

This post originates from a paragraph in this post, written by Dr Grumble. What is the best age? Twenties, thirties, forties? With age comes wisdom, or from my experience cynicism. Don’t get me wrong though, I know a lot of older people out there who are optimistic and can still past on their cumulative knowledge to the younger generation.

So when will I peak? Physically I’m in my prime, playing sports has never been easier for me. At school I was terrible at PE. But Karate changed that.

Mentally? Certainly I am no cleverer then what I was during my A-levels, but I am certainly better at working, am more disciplined and organised with myself.

Life experience? Would say I’m getting there. Compared to other students, being a medic means you are generally exposed to more of life’s ups and downs then other courses. But I still struggle to adapt to new placements, situations, etc, some of the time. Assuming you get better as you get older.

Themes and Work

Tonight I shall do an hour or so of work. However unlike the last time I did some work I shall actually enjoy myself as I dont need to worry about exams and the question of "Will this come up in exams?" won't be a problem.

In other news, its 2011. Already I have, out of habit, put the date down as 2010. Sigh.

So what are your new years resolutions then Fuddled Medic? I hea you cry!

Dont have any, but are some non-specific goals for 2011.

1)Work Smarter, I have a system that works for me, I set myself a goat of working say, 2.5 hours withing a 3 hour timeslot. When exams are coming up I plan my revision day to the tilt. If I can do this a bit more whilst generally working during the term I should have more saved time.

2) Do roughly the same amount of exercise as I did last year but try and eat a bit more fruit and veg. Or just go home more and let the parents cook lovely food for me.

3) Stop Swearing. From Monday next week I shall donate a small sum of money to charity everytime I swear.

Take care dear readers

Medical students act like students, shock horror

Medical Students, like most students enjoy having a good time. After reading this pathetic attempt at an article from the Daily Mail my mind says, so what?

Although the FM would not party quite as hard as some students, the FM certainly drinks some alcohol. Indeed a wonderful night on Friday involved wine, port and beer and trying to pick up an after eight mint from the floor without using hands or knees. It was fun, it was silly, but its what we do.

But at the end of the day, 99.9% of us know that being under the influence of alcohol when dealing with patients or turning up to the wards hungover is unacceptable.

And as one wise daily mail reader pointed out, students have been doing this for a long, long time and will continue to do so.