I need to kill something

An email all medical students received today:

IMPORTANT - Changes to infection control measures

Dear Student,

You are reminded that student dress must comply with infection control guidance appropriate to the clinical setting you are working in. Please note that from Feb 2008 in order to ensure infection control many Hospital Trusts will insist that all medical students and other healthcare workers are bare from the elbow down which also precludes wearing items such hand or wrist jewellery, wrist watches or false nails. The traditional doctors' white coat and ties will not be allowed. The spread of antibiotic resistant infections is a serious issue for the NHS and the welfare of patients, so please ensure you follow the instructions given to you on your attachments regarding appropriate dress.

Regards

Assistant Registrar (Clinical Medicine)

Registry

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Why do I get the feeling I'll be asked my role more often by patients now that I'll look like a school boy......

I can only tolerate feeling like I'm worth less than crap for so long before I rebuild all my walls, this time far stronger than they were previously. Maybe I'll make sure no one ever breaks in ever again....

It'd be so much easier if I never existed... I won't have to feel anything...

...

This moment is the very moment where I feel the most alone and the most unwanted.

La dee das

One of my consultants on my rotational surgical firm attachments said this to me today as I was assisting him in a procedure; "There's a hidden surgeon wanting to break out from that shell of yours." It's nice to be complimented by a consultant. God knows very little impresses them, especially when you're a 3rd year doe-eyed medical student.

So yea, today's been a long, hectic day that started out like one of those days but ended very well.

Will update more when my rotation's done. I miss my sleep, amongst other things.

Busy busy busy

Looks like I'll be rather busy from now on. Lectures start tomorrow and surgical rotations start next week. Asides from the full day schedule Mondays to Fridays I'll be on call once a week in the different surgical departments plus one weekend.

On call room here I come!!

Also, we get our own pager thingies!! :D To bleep us when there's an emergency so we can rush into the hospital in the middle of the night! (actually we get hospital issued ones and I think there's only 4 in a group of 10 so how that's going to be sorted out is a mystery.... no pager = stay in on call room until something happens?)

Hospital management advised us to arrange the rota ourselves in groups of 2 for our on call nights ;) hehehehehehehehehe

I am so gonna love this job and probably hate it at the end of a hectic day but love it nonetheless.

A few friends and I had a nice dinner get together last night at Eva's which was yummylicious. Me of course being me, not knowing how to cook or do anything productive, supplied wine :P Thanks for the wonderful meal Elena, Eva and yes, Michele :D Seeing as my mum's here I'll arrange a dinner where she'll make some lovely dishes because if it were left to me to save the world by cooking, we are so fucked.

In one of our NON-alcohol or drug induced surreal 'adult' discussions we talked about religion and I think some of us have come to the conclusion that Medicine IS a religion and will promptly note it down as such in the next census. Of course later on in the night, almost every one of us came to the realisation that maybe we should not have been allowed into the clinical years... or actually medical school for that matter. We are, all of us, afraid for our patients hehehehehe :D Though on a serious note, I think we all have the potential to be good if not great medics.

Wish us all luck.

Surgery

My 1st experience in surgery and it has to be in Urology!!

Back in London

Business class was niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice :D

I'm so tired :( Classes start on Monday for a full week of lectures then it's off to my surgical placement the week after! Wheee!!

An end to an interesting final long summer

So this is the end of my final long summer break. After this my holidays are few and far between, not to mention short. I'm flying back to London in the morning, back to my clinical years which means no more faffing around being stupid. It's time to get serious, to put all other thoughts away and focus on the job.

It's rather bittersweet I think. A lot of things happened this short summer: Two of my closest and dearest friends getting together, helping to plan for my beloved non-genetic female twin's surprise '17th' birthday party, letting a life slip through my fingers as I watched helplessly while trying to catch my breath in between compressions, smashing the head of an idiot into a glass table because he wouldn't stop heckling my twin, seeing those I care about happy finally. There were highs and lows and lows and lower still but at least it's starting to stabilise again. Hopefully they'll be highs soon enough. As I said, it's all bittersweet. Today was also quite possibly the last time I'll set foot in the ancestral home. My grandfather passed away not long ago and now the family's deciding what to do with the place. Civil War is coming and not the good kind with hot Bucky running around I'm afraid ;)

I hate goodbyes so I won't say anything about that because I'll try to come back as much as I can. No matter how much I detest this place at times it's still home and there are still people I care about here. People I call friends.

To Rin, I hope all goes well and you stay happy. Look for me for anything.

To Ivan, I hope all goes well for you too mate, you know how to find me.

To you both, all the very best.

To Fariah, thanks for an interesting summer. So sorry I can't make it for yours and Shook's wedding. I hope you two will be so happy. Congratulations!

To Shah, wish you were here this time round :(

To Markie, come to London oi! Stupid God-brother.

You are all family.

To everyone else, I'll see you when I see you.

Signing off,
BBCFY

Battered shield...

mum... I know you and dad mean well but sometimes you just don't get it. how lonely I feel... it's not that my friends and I have tons of important stuff to talk about, it's just that your son is extremely lonely.....

it's not the sort of loneliness you can cure by spending more time with me either, no matter how many friends I have, I still am very lonely. my friends in the UK might be the best thing that has ever happened to me but I still feel lonely with them because I just do.

with some I connect almost instantaneously and the loneliness fades but that is a feat difficult to accomplish. one has to experience the same level of void-like emptiness, to experience the cut of the blade and the anguish of self doubt so torturing you wonder why you're alive and ponder if anyone would truly miss you if you weren't around. it doesn't mean I'm strong or unbroken when I don't show any signs of it, sometimes I am just too proud to admit I'm weak but when I am weak, I am very weak.

I am a lonely boy in the inside but a strong, egotistical person on the outside because, it's my shield. A battered shield.