I've added another page to this blog (see tabs at top) called "Med School notes". These are jpegs of my revision notes I'm doing for my clerkship and final clinical exam.
My revision is consisting of med school lectures and now mainly MedBullets.com which I thoroughly recommend.
My four weeks IM placement is finished. It went really well. I managed to juggle my ambulance shifts and placement. One bad thing, which became a good thing, is Bubs got bronchiolitis and was too sick for childcare so my partner had to take time off work to care for her. During that time we both decided it would be best if he took the rest of the year off work to care for Bubs and support me so I can continue juggling work and med school. So far, it has been working out really well for all three of us. I also just happened that I got a substantial pay rise at work so we don't really need both of us to be working at this point in time and are able to have one of us at home looking after the home front. Bubby does like childcare but not full-time, so perhaps she can still go casually or join a playgroup instead. Not sure yet. We're just playing it by ear at the moment. My partner is enjoying have time off work too.
Exciting: I got an email from a hospital saying they can take me for 16 weeks! Wows! It's a regional hospital about a 2.5-hour drive from home, which is completely fine because that's driveable and I can commute of my days off. I was worried I'd have to move away from home for months, so this is a good outcome. This is exciting and excellent news. It means I only have, really, four weeks of surgery to find and then that's it for clinical placements! Wow!
So my mentor said she might be able to help with the surgery, otherwise, there are five potential hospitals that I can chase up, and in fact that is my job to do today.
Things are going really well for me right now. The only thing that is bothering me is that OUM is only holding the OSCE and final clinical exam twice a year. This is very frustrating. It means that if I finish my placements a month after the OSCE, I have to wait another five months before I can sit the next one and graduate. This is what is looking like to be my situation with the OSCE in Dec and my projected completion time of January. How annoying. I have asked to do it early, but they are pretty strict with students needing to have completed all their placements first. So stay tuned for more on this one.
My revision is consisting of med school lectures and now mainly MedBullets.com which I thoroughly recommend.
My four weeks IM placement is finished. It went really well. I managed to juggle my ambulance shifts and placement. One bad thing, which became a good thing, is Bubs got bronchiolitis and was too sick for childcare so my partner had to take time off work to care for her. During that time we both decided it would be best if he took the rest of the year off work to care for Bubs and support me so I can continue juggling work and med school. So far, it has been working out really well for all three of us. I also just happened that I got a substantial pay rise at work so we don't really need both of us to be working at this point in time and are able to have one of us at home looking after the home front. Bubby does like childcare but not full-time, so perhaps she can still go casually or join a playgroup instead. Not sure yet. We're just playing it by ear at the moment. My partner is enjoying have time off work too.
Exciting: I got an email from a hospital saying they can take me for 16 weeks! Wows! It's a regional hospital about a 2.5-hour drive from home, which is completely fine because that's driveable and I can commute of my days off. I was worried I'd have to move away from home for months, so this is a good outcome. This is exciting and excellent news. It means I only have, really, four weeks of surgery to find and then that's it for clinical placements! Wow!
So my mentor said she might be able to help with the surgery, otherwise, there are five potential hospitals that I can chase up, and in fact that is my job to do today.
Things are going really well for me right now. The only thing that is bothering me is that OUM is only holding the OSCE and final clinical exam twice a year. This is very frustrating. It means that if I finish my placements a month after the OSCE, I have to wait another five months before I can sit the next one and graduate. This is what is looking like to be my situation with the OSCE in Dec and my projected completion time of January. How annoying. I have asked to do it early, but they are pretty strict with students needing to have completed all their placements first. So stay tuned for more on this one.