Thursday, 22 December 2011

It’s been ages again since my last update. The last few months have flown past and been very busy for me. I’m now on a Christmas break for 2 weeks and am taking a little breather. This will be the first Christmas that I will be spending away from my parents as I wasn’t quite sure which country they would be spending it. So I am spending these holidays in Whitley Bay (the coastal region just North of Newcastle) with Geoff, and we will be visiting his parents for Christmas Day.

In my last update I had just started my Paediatrics rotation in Sunderland hospital. I really enjoyed the 3 weeks I spent there, except that I caught a virus from one of the patients which knocked me for a whole weekend.

Yet I still managed to bake lots of cupcakes decorated with homemade white chocolate butterflies for Geoff’s mom’s birthday while I was recovering. And she loved them!

I then moved on to do 3 weeks of Psychiatry in Durham at a very new psychiatric hospital there. I disliked every second of my time there as I have never enjoyed seeing patients who are so very mentally ill that they have to be hospitalised. Sadly I never got to see patients in the community who were coping better, so I found this rotation thoroughly depressing (and I do see the irony in this!)

But during this rotation I was also applied for my Foundation training posts, which are the two years compulsory internship that we undertake in hospitals after we qualify. And after a few months of waiting I eventually heard the beginning of this month that I had gotten my first choice and will be staying in the North of England like I had wanted to. Now I have had to rank all 380 jobs available in my order of preference and will find out mid February which hospital I will be based at as from August next year.

End of October was Halloween. Geoff and I attended a lovely evening event on the Friday before at the local Tynemouth Prior ruins, where a group of actors retold the history of the Priory, inserting suitable ghost stories for the occasion too. And afterwards we headed off to a charity function in the city in aid of neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s and Multiple Sclerosis. It was held at the pub at St James’ Park (Newcastle United football club grounds) and they apparently managed to raise a substantial amount of money on the night.

Geoff and I also attended an interesting theatre production one evening entitled “Going Dark”.  Most of it was actually done in pitch darkness and there was only one actor in the piece. It was all about a single dad being diagnosed with a hereditary condition that leads to blindness and how it starts affecting his whole life. Very dramatic!

I was very pleased when November arrived and I started a 3 weeks rotation at a GP practice. The practice I was with were lovely and I enjoyed every second of it!

My final rotation just before the holidays was entitled Preparing for Practice, where we were basically taught all the paperwork and other jobs that will come in useful during our first few months working in hospitals after we qualify.

And now Christmas is only a few days away. This year there hasn’t been any real snow yet in Newcastle, except for a few hours last Friday, but that quickly melted again.

I’ve been getting into the spirit of Christmas this year. Nicola and I drove to Cragside one evening to see the Christmas lights that had been put up on the old National Trust estate. Newcastle has also had a few markets on in the city centre and as always their Christmas lights are absolutely amazing!

Geoff, his parents and I also visited Cragside in the beginning of December on one of my days off and enjoyed a lovely Christmas lunch. Nicola, Renee and I have also enjoyed a final Christmas meal at the local country pub before the Christmas break.

And I have just come back after spending a lovely 3 days in Amsterdam with Geoff. We took the ferry from Newcastle (its an overnight journey)  and stayed in a hotel in the centre of the city. We spent 3 days walking everywhere and sight seeing and I could definitely feel my leg muscles at the end of the day!

And now that we have survived the longest night of the year, I am looking forward to a few relaxing days before my last sprint to my finals in June begins in the New Year. I officially only have a half a year left of my studies! Scary stuff!

Wishing you and your families all the best for this Festive Season!