I'm a coward

Time to call it a day, I started blogging with Dr Grumble, Rant, Crippen etc. Now they have gone, whether by choice or force.

I have done this blog for nearly two years, it has been a pleasure to do so. But I have lost my enthusiasm for it. I look back at posts I've written over the last few months and the blog is not what is was.

Blogging isn't fun for me anymore, especially as I'm young and dont really want to be noticed by anyone.

Time to call it a day

Stereotypes

A woman from pakistan who runs a shop with respiratory symptoms = TB

A gentleman goest to spain and gets some symptoms = Legionella

A 21 year old woman with lower abdominal pain = ectopic pregnancy

A middle aged woman wo seems quite irritable with muscle pain = fibromyagia

Anything else? Pretty sure I can pass any remainding exams if I just learn all the steroetypes

Thinking

The FM is gearing up for exams, especially the OSCE where she/he will be forced to go round 12 lots of stations examining patients, discussing ethics or looking at radiology stuff. Or pretending a dummy has anaphylactic shock with the words "rash" written on its chest.

But the problem is these exams are nerve wracking and yet at the same time encourage people to make up markschemes and learn them by rote. They do not encourage thinking.

Take the abdominal station, if I see someone who is well (i.e. stable) in an OSCE, I can deduce that they will have bowel sounds and are very unlikely to have a uraemic/liver/CO2 retention flap.

But he/she still has to go through the motions of listening to bowel sounds etc.

Is this a bad thing? Routine is go isn't it? Aren't you less likely to make mistakes if you follow the same patter?

My time

The time is coming where the FM will sit the exams to end all exams (at medical school at least), will she have learnt enough?

Yep, its here, finals are 14 weeks away. Panic is starting to kick in.

But I've got this far?

Cheers..

..Ben Goldacre for pointing this out to the FM. Can someone please give a definition of the term "temporary dementia." Perhaps it refers to when the FM has had alot to drink (in her case just three pints will do)?

Silly and Justice

There are the so called four ethical principles, autonomy, beneficience, non maleficience and justice (aka how does it fit into the wider community).

There is some silly notion going around that women should be free to pick and choose if they have a caesarean or not.

By this logic I should be free to decide if I want antibiotics for a runny nose, etc

Oh Dear

I'm afraid to say I've seen most of what Lily desribes over in Scrubs and Pubs. I have already blogged about the high proportion of unpleasant people within medicine and now I'm going to have to etend this to medical students to.

Indeed I have heard quite a few of my colleagues criticising FY1 for "only" being a year ahead of them. A year is a long time, particularly when the FM looks back on where she was last year. Plus we have not passed finals.

So why are we like this?

Is it because some of us were forced into medicine by pushy parents and various private schools?

Or because people came into medicine just wanting money? A very silly thing to do, there are far easier ways. But as mentioned before the FM gets annoyed and upset when hearing people boast about how much private work they want to do.

But a friend summarised it to me best, medical students quickly forget how lucky they are to be here in the first place

Rant over