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!

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

It’s been about 3 ½ months since my last update – time definitely flies when you’re having fun!

When I last wrote I had just moved my boxes into the new house that I am sharing with Abby, Sahira and Fiona. Then 2 days later I jetted off to Austria for 9 weeks. As part of my studies we need to complete a medical elective anywhere we wish, so I did 4 weeks in an Orthopaedic department in Neunkirchen hospital and 3 weeks with a GP in Gloggnitz. These are close to my parent’s house so I was able to stay there in comfy surroundings and commute daily.

Despite my initial misgivings at doing orthopaedics (I’m not a huge fan of surgery), I absolutely loved my time in the hospital. The staff were friendly and I was roped in to assist in the day to day activities in theatre, the wards and also the emergency department. It was such fun, despite having to get up just after 5am every morning in order to be awake and at hospital for the 7am starts, but then I finished at 3pm and had time to visit my gran or run errands in the afternoon. And I was allowed to try out many new things, including stitching, which made my day!

The GP time was quieter for me in that he doesn’t usually have students with him and is the only GP in his very small, but very busy, practice. I was allowed to sit in on all his consultations, and my hours with him were 7:30am until 1pm. And Tuesdays were days off. So very relaxed for me!

I also braved driving on the opposite side of the road during my time in Austria. It was rather nerve wracking for the first 3 days, but I only had one incident of getting in the passenger side – after a shopping trip – and then made as if I was searching for something in the glove compartment because everyone was staring at me in the parking lot! :)

And on weekends there was always something happening somewhere, and I must have attended at least 5 festivals during my stay in Austria. I also managed to visit many friends and family members, and during the last 2 weeks Geoff flew out to Austria and we enjoyed seeing a lot of the touristy places together.

 Tante Christl, Geoff and I at the Laurenzikirtag in Katzelsdorf

Then mid-August we flew back to the UK, arriving at Heathrow from where we caught a train to Mandy’s where we spent the night. Mandy had been babysitting my new 2^nd-hand car (who I have named Gertrude) for me while I had been away.  We then travelled up towards the North over the next few days, stopping for some sightseeing in Cambridge, Lincoln (where we stayed overnight) and Scarborough along the way.

The rest of August was spent unpacking all my stuff in my new room and I also went sightseeing to a few National Trust places (which is so much easier now that I have a car!)

And I started back for my final year of medicine at the beginning of September. I am only in hospitals this year (in a region called Wear) and am already finishing my first rotation at South Tyneside hospital (in Obstetrics and Gynaecology) this Friday. It’s very busy so far, with early starts and long days, plus the studying at the end of every day! But not long until my final exams (which are in June 2012) and then all this hard work will have paid off.

Tuesday, 7th June 2011

In my last update I wrote that I was on my way to enjoy “The Late Shows” with Abby, where many of the museums and other attractions in Newcastle opened from 7-11pm and had free entry.

On Friday I just had the most fantastic evening with Abby in Ouseburn valley. We first went to the Ouseburn farm to see the animals and then headed over to Seven Stories, which is a seven story children’s books archive and gallery, with a bookshop downstairs as well. (www.sevenstories.org.uk). This was magical as they have displays of original works from a variety of authors and artists. That evening they had exhibitions entitled “Through the Magic Mirror, the World of Anthony Browne” and “There's Nuffin Like a Puffin: celebrating 70 years of Puffin Books.” But truly remarkable were the Enid Blyton archives... They even had an original manuscript that hadn't even been published – it’s called “Mr Tumpy’s caravan” and is 180 A4 pages long and is complete!!! The novel is a fantasy adventure, with Mr Tumpy and his friends Muffin and Puffin and Bun-Dorg the dog getting carried off by a walking caravan, visiting various strange and magical lands before ultimately vanquishing a dog-headed dragon and being rewarded by a beautiful princess. Truly amazing! And the children's books throughout the 7 floors just brought back so many cherished memories.

We then popped into the art gallery across the way. It actually belongs to Alexander Millar who paints those amazing Gadgie characters. He was busy painting when we went in, he paints in a suit with his shirt sleeves rolled up wearing a thick leather apron covered in paint marks! We had a long chat with him and he is really lovely. Apparently he just had an exhibition in the Hancock Museum and is the first living artist to have that honour! I will one day save up to buy a painting of his, they fetch approximately £950 at the mo and his prints already cost £300! Ahem! But they do make you smile when you look at them! :)

My favourite painting – called “Singin’ in the Rain”!

Painting called “Again, Again!”

Then we went to Northern Print where artists told us about screen printing, etching and other amazing techniques. Again very interesting, and Abby even made a handkerchief with birds screen printed on it. Then we headed on home.

On Saturday evening we started off at the Old Town Wall in the city centre next to China Town. We visited one of the towers, called Morden Towers, which was built around 1290 and is one of only five Drum Towers remaining from the 16 originally built on the medieval town wall enclosing the city. When Abby and I got there we were just in time to listen to a musician play his harp. Unfortunately after we sat down he informed us that he disliked conventional harp music and would play something contemporary and made up on the spot. It was awful, like nails being dragged across a blackboard, and we were trapped for two “songs” until we made a run for it!

Then we went to Blackfriars, a restored 13^th century friary in the heart of Newcastle. The Friary was started in 1239 and closed by Henry VIII in 1539. The craft companies have since then used the areas for their meeting rooms. A restaurant has also recently opened in one of the buildings. A few of the old meeting rooms were opened to the public on Saturday night, though there was nothing exciting in them, and outside we could view the ruins of the old church that was demolished in 1543.

We then headed down through the city, stopping off at the Newcastle Arts Centre where potters where busy creating a Mad Hatters Tea Party table out of clay... it looked really good!

Our next stop was the Castle Keep (from where Newcastle gets its name) and is a Norman stone tower built between 1168-78 on the orders of Henry II. It was built on top of the old Roman Fort and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery. The Castle Keep had 5 levels, all reached by narrow steep winding staircases!!! The view from the roof was absolutely spectacular as you could see the whole of Newcastle just as the sun was setting.

The Castle Keep

View over Newcastle from the roof of the Castle Keep

View over the River Tyne from the roof of the Castle Keep

Then we headed down to the Quayside, stopping of at the Side Gallery to view their latest Photographic Exhibition, which this time had photos of Revolutions from around the world. Hair raising photos!

We then walked along the River Tyne and went to our last stop for the night, the Sage, where Abby and I joined in a Ukulele jam and learnt how to play the chorus of “Mr Brightside” by The Killers on the Ukulele. It was a lot of fun!

View over the River Tyne with some of its bridges

Learning to play the Ukulele!

So all in all a rather late night (I eventually got to bed after 1am) but I enjoyed every second of it!

The weekend afterwards Fiona, Attia and I entered a cake baking and decorating competition that was being held at the Tyneside cinema on the Sunday to celebrate their 75^th birthday. Obviously the cakes had to have a movie theme to them, so I left the plotting and creative planning to Attia and Fiona while I then gave moral support and made little things like chainsaws and guns out of icing. We ended up making 3 cakes since there were 3 of us... two were a combo of James Bond meets the minions from Despicable Me (a cake with the 007 target but with the two minions inside, the other cupcakes with minions dressed as James Bond and the baddie Blofeld complete with scar and fluffy white cat) and the other cupcakes with parts of Mickey Mouse on them (in a gruesome Mickey Mouse meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre theme).

And you won’t believe it!!!! Our gruesome Mickey cupcakes won!!! We received movie vouchers, a cake stand and a book about Tyneside cinema’s history.

“Minions are Forever”

"On Gru’s Secret Service”

“The Mickey Chainsaw Massacre” – our WINNING CAKE!!!

Fiona and I with the judge Michael Chaplin, who is the author of the book we won too!

The weather has also been quite nice most days (interspersed with typical English cloudy, drizzly days as well). I spent a day helping Geoff to weed his allotment on one sunny Saturday (he has quite a few veg growing already, but I’m quite disappointed that I won’t be able to enjoy any of his strawberries as I won’t be here when they are ripe and ready to pick!). This past Friday afternoon, since it was such a warm day (25 degrees!) he took the afternoon off work and we went for a long stroll along the coast, had a picnic on St Mary’s Island at the lighthouse there and then carried on walking along the coast before taking one of the paths past Seaton Sluice and into the countryside through the woods of Holywell Dene, stopping off at a pub or two along the way to quench our thirst. It was an absolutely stunning day and we only got back at about 9pm that evening, though now that summer is here there is still daylight!

St Mary’s lighthouse

Seaton Sluice

Holywell Dene

Holywell Dene

But I haven’t only been socialising, exploring and baking cakes! I completed another nursing shift this past Thursday, though it was quite an easy 11 hours as I had to help patients who were brought it for the Royal College of Surgeons General Surgery exams. Basically I made sure the 10 patients under my care were comfortable, brought them tea, coffee, lunch etc., and then sat around twiddling my thumbs when they didn’t need anything. Though I did watch with interest as the exam candidates stressed out, it seems one never does lose that nervousness associated with exams, even if one is already a surgeon with grey hair! :)

I also finished off my last rotation at Dr Kate’s, where I’ve learnt quite a bit. And we also spent two days in Uni where we had to fill in paperwork for the General Medical Council and received info about our Foundation training (previously called House officers which is a 2 year internship after graduation). It seems like everyone assumes we are basically qualified and that final year and the final exams are just a formality! Scary! So I’ve officially finished 4^th year and am off on a two month medical elective in Austria on Thursday... will be doing Trauma and Orthopaedics in Neunkirchen hospital for 4 weeks and then 4 weeks with a local GP. Should be fun!

Oh, and yesterday I also moved. Spent Sunday packing up all the stuff that I have accumulated over the last 3 years, and yesterday Nicola helped me load it into her car and drive it around the corner to the house I will be sharing with Abby, Sahira and Fiona. Took us about 2 ½ hours to get it all across, and I’d forgotten what a pain moving was! But luckily we managed to re-energise over a lovely lunch in a nearby restaurant afterwards. And we were even given free dessert! :)