Pyjamas, Doctors, Free Time

Tuesday, October 18, 2005.
Hey,

Pictures of me Sunday night at the medics pub crawl (not the best one of me!, and we’re all wet because it was raining – as usual). It was a great night out – Medics seem to study hard but party hard. It was a ‘theme’ pub crawl, so first years wore pyjamas (me in my housecoat, pyjama pants). It was a great night out – Medics seem to study hard but party hard. It was a ‘theme’ pub crawl, so first years wore pyjamas (me in my housecoat, pajama pants, and you can see them, but I had on some very funky Zebra head slippers), second years had to wear something pink, and third and up wore scrubs ‘with a twist.’ It was great, we went to about 6 bars and pubs, and the very last one was privately rented so it was all medics. It was a great way to meet medics. These pictures are me with medics from my hall. There’s also the whole ‘Sunday night’ thing. We’re pretty sure that they organize it Sunday night because the upper years know that all the first years have class at 9:00 Monday morning, and have class until 5:00pm Monday night. IT WAS A LONG MONDAY!

Today wasn’t too bad, reviewed a bit of work from yesterday – then we had lectures all afternoon about our GP placements this year. There’s one problem – we all got packages about where our placements would be, and with whom, but mine was empty. Me, with about 50 other medics are placed in practices in the spring term, which is actually in January, I guess spring comes a little earlier here (feb/march or so). It has its benefits and non-benefits. It means I practically get all my Tuesdays off. We also all get Wednesday afternoons off so, I get a free day and a half each week. This also means that Mon, Thurs, Fri are 9-5 class days (yikes!). Everyone else though, won’t get a free day, they’ll have Tues morning off, but GP practices in the afternoon. The GP visits are not so much to learn how to diagnose, but how to interact with patients and how to learn to communicate (big part of being a doctor). This also means that next semester, I’ll have a slightly heavier work load. Mainly, because the biggest exams are going to be at the end of March, and I’ll have this extra course. But, they can’t fit us all into practices this term, so I just have to live with it ;o).

Tonight, I went to a meeting for a sort of service/charity group meeting for UK med students call MEDSIN. Its very interesting, I’m just not sure what to get involved with yet. It’s a worldwide organization (just called medsin in the UK), I can get involved with AIDS awareness, teaching in Africa, STI awareness, fundraising, organ and bone marrow donation, I can even get involved with the medical curriculum and its methods and policies. There was a lot of people and I was tired, so I just joined the club, but will sign up later for which area I want to get involved with.

On a side note – I AM ALWAYS WAITING IN LINE HERE (called QUEUEING), but there are lines for everything, I know there’s lots of people here, but everything just seems a little poorly organized. Oh well, it’s doable, just annoying sometimes.

Well Ruby tomorrow, and homework – and I can actually go in a set up my bank account (yay).

Hope everyone is well,
-Pete