Cardiff University

Due to the NHS trust blocking my access to the blog (obviously they feel that their employees have something to complain about) it has not been written on since Hannah and I left Cardiff for pastures new-ish full of sheep. Contrary to popular belief, people in North Wales don't actually bring their sheep into the hospitals, they have special pens outside.

Since the hostile takeover (merger) between the medical school and Cardiff Uni, thi gs have been looking worse and worse for the medics. Not only have all our social clubs been removed, our sports teams forced to practise on carparks and our views not been represented by the students' union, we have now been told that our exams will be a week earlier- Monday afternoon, Tuesday lunchtime and Wednesday morning.

The medical school has so little power that this won't change, we aren't represented (it is quite difficult to vote in elections on campus when you're on placement the other side of Wales) by the union, at any one thime most of us are away/in the hospital so we won't be able to strike, and, now we know they're a week early, most of us will be too busy cramming (and trying to learn stuff for the placement we're still on) to make as much fuss as someone on a different course.

End of rant.

Fran
xx

Preparations

Over the past week the house has been full of housemates with the lovely sunny weather bringing hope to all. As the medics move on to our last placement before exams, becoming real doctors is drawing ever closer. As I sit here and type Hannah is desperately trying to pack all her belongings into as small a space as possible before going to Banbury for the weekend, albeit not on a white horse with rings and bells. I should be packing too, as I'm on my way to Wrexham, however, following a visit to A & E this morning about my foot, I feel it is ok not to bother just yet.

The others have been slightly overwhelmed with the frenetic activities of Hannah and myself this week, on Tuesday I spoke to/ spent time with most members of Woodville Baptist Church, and saw the other ones on Wednesday(before my foot went wrong.) The ladies entertained some of the male members of Highfields last night, none appear to have died of food poisoning.

Typo of the week, seen at a medical centre near here (the army bit) - minuets of the last meeting-yes it was handwritten, yes I pointed it out, no, the soldier still hasn't realised what might be wrong with it.

Anyone with an idea about what to do re Iran, answers on a postcard please addressed to the MoD. Any suggestions welcomed.

Fran
xx

Life plods on as normal

Hey frannie!

Well life here in Cardiff goes on as normal - you've missed out on the spectacular return of Hilda (probably best!). So bad even Hilda had to escape to Banbury to the little cottage in the country to return back to normal Hannah state!

Elisa and I had fun this weekend - we went on a walk through the fields and forest behind her house in the beautiful sunshine. Only problem was, it had been raining rather heavily all week so the land was actually mostly flooded and very very muddy!! So we spent most of the walk shimmying along the fences to avoid the water-logged paths! Part of the walk was alongside the M40, so you can imagine the looks we had from the cars as they zoomed past seeing two crazy girls clinging to the fences! After climbing over the metal gate, we had to build a bridge across the swollen river with branches etc to walk across, only to discover the field was also flooded (and alas no fence to walk on) so we ended up wading through the field in water up to our knees!! All fun! who said accountants and medics were grown-ups?

I believe that back at the Heathfield house, the ladies were visited by a friend of lou's and also Mr Mcall came to town...i'll leave someone else to write about their weekend together.

Love you lots frannie, have you been put off having babies yet?
Mwa
the Hannah Lady xxx

Where is everyone?

As the last post on here was mine from last week I presume that a small tornado has ripped through Cardiff, destroying everything in it's path......This could be true as I haven't seen any news all week, and have only just woken up after 13 hours sleep (went to bed at 4 this morning after delivering a baby and have just woken up after 5 this eve)

I have nothing to report as I have only seen my consultant once all week, apparantly he normally phones to check if the students have been on the labour ward but he hasn't in my case so either he trusts me to turn up or he doesn't care at all.

This week I have been the Jonah of the labour ward, many of the ladies I have been with have ended up with a ventouse delivery or emergency c-section, although towards the end of the week I had several who went to the toilet at 6-7 cm and came back out ready to push. The most farcical one was a turkish lady who spoke no english and whose husband had to come in by bus to help consent his wife for her c-section (placental abruption) the consent took longer than the procedure.

Happy days

Fran
xx

North Wales, again.

This placement got off to a rather less than auspicious start when, upon arriving at Glan Clwyd hospital I discovered that they weren't expecting me, and didn't know who I was. I did eventually get a room in a flat with the other obs & gynae girls, and did feel a bit better when I received a text message from an anonymous housemate standing on Newport station...

Monday morning dawned...they still weren't expecting me, expecially my consultant who now believes he's been dumped with the medical school's prize idiot student, with some justification. He keeps telling me to do things eg, take a history whilst the patient is in with the midwife, hang around with the registrar on call who is in a small cosy world of her own and disappears into thin air all the time. These things should be simple for me, I normally manage them very well, however, for this placement, I appear to have turned into an idiot.

Take today:

The midwife was so busy chatting to the patients that I couldn't ask any questions, the ladies felt so sorry for me when the consultant was quizzing me that one said in in my position she would have cried. I nearly cried.

Having been in at 0830 to consent patients for that afternoon's theatre by lunchtime (15 minutes) I was quite tired and the day was about to get worse... I had to do internal examinations on all three ladies, then scrub in. The theatre nurses have started speaking slowly and nicely to me as they realise I'm a fool, ditto the SHO, ditto the A&E reg who was practising intubation (before my speculum mong-ness in case you were wondering.) We started the last procedure at 1645, I had scrubbed in but forgotten to put on my mask, I wouldn't recommend it, holding the uterus out of the way at arm's length and trying not to breathe isn't that much fun, in fact, by 1645 being in the hospital isn't that much fun; after leaving theatre (1820) I got lost trying to find the locker room where I had left my clothes, and nearly got lost leaving the hospital.

The day has been better since, at least my consultant gave me a lift back from our clinic in Holywell (it was hit and miss for a while, he threatened not to unless I remembered something, anything...) Eleri appeared at 2100 having last been seen leaving the hospital at 0930 in the presence of her consultant and his SHO on a day to Deeside clinic. At 1630 the consultant announced that he wouldn't be finished for a while (finished at 1730) and then would be staying on after that. The SHO was picked up by his girlfriend- they live near Deeside- Eleri was left to fend for herself. She eventually got a lift off her very jet-lagged aunt. Suddenly 1830 doesn't seem so bad after all...

Pancakes were fun...until the smoke from the butter frying set the fire alarm off and we had to evacuate the building. Someone else set it off this evening, maybe we can make it a nightly ritual...

This tale of woe has been brought to you by Fran - I'd rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than become a gynaecologist-Cain
xx
Fran
xx

Blogging as therapy

I had an interesting lecture today (yes, even psychology students have lectures occasionally) which I thought was quite relevant to our discussion of whether to continue blogging...

The lecture was all about social emotions and the communication of emotion. We learnt about how and why when we experience emotional events we feel the need to share our experiences with others ( females tend to tell anyone who will listen, males will ususally own share their emotions with a very close friend) and the benefits there can be from doing this. Studies conducted - for example by Pennebaker et al (1990) - have shown that getting people to write about their negative emotional experiences has several benefits, including:

• boosting immune system activity
• benefiting physical health
• improving academic performance

There is controversy about why writing has such dramatic effects, perhaps turning a chaotic emotional experience into a narrative form increases insight and self-understanding, or perhaps it increases one's sense of personal control over a situation.

The obvious conclusion is keep blogging! It would be both physically and psychologically costly for us to stop doing so. (However a purely offloading of our negative emotional experiences may be quite depressing for our readers, so perhaps sharing a few positive experiences every now and then may be a good thing too.)

Mim xx

Snow

"Snow causes widespread disruption

Snow has fallen across large parts of Wales making travel conditions treacherous in many places and closing more than 700 schools.

The Met Office issued a severe weather warning, saying some areas eventually could have up to 15cm (6in) of snow.

There was disruption to bus and train services and the temporary closure of Cardiff airport's runway, delaying Wales rugby fans' flights to Edinburgh.

Many roads have been closed amid warnings not to drive unless essential."

This is the latest news showing on the BBC wales news bit. Below is the information from the medical school:

Dear All Students,

Tonight and tomorrow have been forecast as heavy snow, please can you make arrangements to ensure you get to the OSCE exam on time, if you arrive later than the time you have been told to arrive then you may not be allowed to sit the exam

Basically, if it snows so badly that you can't move your car at all (it almost was on all the side streets in Cardiff at 0800 this morning) it's your fault that you have to resit the entire year having failed the OSCE for non-attendance. I like the way they think.

The snow has covered South Wales. The streets are no longer safe- watch out for drive-by snowballing by 4th year medics who have now finished their exams. Earlier I made a snowlady. I'm sure there will be a picture of her soon, I can't work the camera.

Fran
xx

Revision

1. The House blog is still very much alive and well despite alarming reports to the contrary.
2. Certain members of the house are currently engaged in revising hard...



.....Ah the joys of Pscyhe revision! The future of the NHS is, as you can see, in very safe hands :-)
Right...some of us actually have 2months of work to learn and four men to feed in the next 48hrs!
Hx

Dying a death

Well, I fear this blog is dying a slow (and painful for me) death:( Facebook seems to have taken over the world and nobody seems at all interested in posting blogs anymore. Is this the beginning of the end... you decide...

Pen Y Fan

Saturday 20th Januray 2007

A Dundee Adventure

Frannie and i have certainly been having our fair share of adventures over the past few days!
Friday morning we set off to liverpool aiport where we flew up to Aberdeen, over the beautiful snow covered higlands. We had a bit of a mad dash to get the train (which cost us the same as the flights!) and then fran's mummy met us at the train station in dundee.

It was very cold and windy in Dundee, but we still braved the weeather and did exciting things:
We visited the sea (which is literally at the end of the road!) and the castle, had hot chocolates in the glass cafe on the sea front, wore lots and lots of warm clothes ( including hats in bed!), spent lots of time reading (i finished my books on the journey up there, so spent the rest of the time reading New Scientist - which for some reason has disappeared from our house this year - it was always entertaining reading whilst on the loo!), we had thai curry on Saturday night, a big long lie in on Sat morning (well fran did - i decided to scare frannie's parents by having a hypoglycaemic attack and nearly fainitng - everything went white and sounds went very far away! - but they saved me by putting sugar in my tea - so thankyou!!) and went to the singing bit of church on sunday morning, leaving before the sermon so we could get back to aberdeen in time for our flight!

Here endeth the adventures of the Hannah Lady and frannie.
Miss you lovely ladies
xxx

Surviving the Storm

Thursday morning, gale force winds hit the north coast of wales...i decided it would be rather exciting to go on an adventure to the local Spar shop to buy milk, so set of on the walk round the corner. As soon as I'd left the hospital grounds the wind really picked up and i was battling the wind all the way to the shops (i was blown backwards on several occasions!) the way back was easier - i got blown all the way home!!

However, during my brief time away from the safety of my accommodation here, the wind had picked up so much that lots of the tiles from the roof had been blown off all over the car-park (narrowly missing the parked cars)


I ran quickly across the car park into the accomodation (thankfully no stray tiles fell on my head!) I then sat at the kitchen table working (yes i do that sometimes believe it or not!) From there i had a good view of the men in yellow jackets and hard hats who spent a lot of the afternoon staring at the roof, willing the tiles to stay there!

By the time Frannie arrived later that afternoon the men in yellow coats had come up with a solution to reduce the risk of damage to medical students if a tile were to fall on our heads...
Hard Hats!!
These were put in buckets, one at the entrance to our building to put on before we left, the other bucket of hard hats at the far side of the car park where it was deemed we would be free from the risk of falling tiles! How considerate the staff are here! It proved an entertaining distraction from work for the rest of the evening watching med students scamper back and forth across the car park wearing their hard hats!
Here is frannie and i as we cross the car park in our hats before we visited frannie's Nain and grandpa and uncle for dinner:

North wales is proving entertaining!
The Hannah Lady
xxx

Essays

Even though I have previously passed an essay purely on the fact that the marker enjoyed reading it (it didn't answer the question set but was very interesting) I decided for this essay set by my consultant to turn over a new leaf and write an essay that fitted the title. Now, I don't know about anybody else but having been given the title "The first month of life is the most difficult except for the last" I presumed that I needed to include some discussion on the last month of life, not just the first...

My essay was returned to me with the words " Very interesting and discursive but not medical enough, do you have a background in literature, you write very well" What does the man expect if he gives me a title like that? My colleagues ignored the title and wrote 6 pages on neonatology (copied straight out of a textbook) and got the same mark as me.

Moral of the story: Ecclesiastes 2: 11.

Looking forward to my BA in Medicine

Fran
xx

Alien Babies

These are some alien babies, otherwise known as premature/preterm infants. Due to my fatigue I fear that this post will not match the verbosity of the previous one on the blog written by Miss S E Rose BA (Is it Hons? I presume so.)

I have spent the day doing an early shift on the SCBU in the hospital. We had 8 premature babies who were just growing, they're very difficult to feed and look after as they are very fiddly and too small to fit into things like nappies very well, also somethimes thay forget to breathe when they're being fed and machines beep at you. At the other end of the spectrum we also had a baby who had been delivered 12 days late weighing 10lb1oz, FATTY! He wasn't breathing very well and they thought they might have to intubate him and transfer to Glan Clwyd (where Hannah Lady is.) The poor thing had got a bit stuck (as you would if you weighed that much) and ended up having a ventouse AND forceps delivery, nice!

It's sunny in Bangor today so that's it for another year or so, it seems to rain here all the time, if it's not raining it just has or is just about to. Hannah says it's the same further along the coast. We went to 20+ last night and behaved ourselves, at least, Hannah behaved herself, I dropped things on the floor and made a fool out of myself but that was to be expected. I'm going for dinner this evening at someone from church's house, long may the dinners continue! I hope tht Cardiff is not too bad without Hannah and me, we'll see you on Friday, either together or separately.

Love

Fran

xx

Proposal for a BSc in Appellations

This is my usual conversation on the phone when trying to tell someone my name:

-What's ur name?
-Sarah Rose.
-Rhodes?
-No, ROSE. R-O-S-E. As in the flower.
-Ohhh. Ok. How lovely.
-Yes.
-And is that Sarah with a 'h'?

I guess it's quite paradoxical that pple can't spell my name, cuz u wudnt think it'd be that hard. Maybe a study should be done. I bet America has a degree on this topic. It wouldn't surprise me, because even UK students can now study for a degree in sex. Wow. Wouldn't like to meet anyone doing THAT course.

Maybe a study HAS been done.....hmmm. What d'ya reckon the findings were? I reckon the pple that have the most trouble are those with really simple names (like myself, where pple just can't fathom how simple it is to spell it), or incredibly difficult names. So the two extremes. Hmmmm, thinking about it, maybe rhymes and half-rhymes come into it too, along with the ratio of consonants to vowels, with some kind of mathematical explanation re. their frequency tensioned with the placement of these in relation to each other. Languages, date and culture would also come into it too I guess. And common sense. So maybe it should be a BA, not a BSc. Hmmm.

I bet there is a degree on this subject. If not, there should be. I plan to campaign for one if not. Any takers?

Hot or Not

Fobbs almost Famous!

Fobbs (who is still alive despite lack of bloggage) almost received International Fame this Christmas. Having arrived in China she was informed that she was required to go on national tv to record some Beijing Opera (yes that does require singing). Thankfully this would have taken 2 days of filming which was deemed far too long for the busy schedule that lay ahead.
Lx

Woooo!!! My bike is fixed! :D

This may be the shortest blog ever, but I just wanted everyone to know (especially Frannie, who I hope will be v. proud of me) that I fixed my bike...and washed it! And it only took 6 weeks! lol. The guy in the shop offered to do it for me (do I look that incompetent?), but I bravely took the tyre thingy home and did it all under an hour! Go me! :D If social work goes to pot maybe I'll become a bike fixerer.

Well, maybe this blog isn't the shortest ever after all...would like to hold that record though....maybe I'll start collecting world records....hmmm. All suggestions welcome. As Frannie mentioned, I already have one (joking aside, d'ya reckon that IS one?). I do hope so :)

Love you girlies,
Sairie
xxxx

Deepest Darkest North Wales

Well after a groovy weekend with lots of wonderful people in Sheffield, frannie and i convoyed it across the peak district on a very twisty twisty road through very pretty scenery behind very slow drivers to the North of this wonderful place called Wales! We managed to make it to the hospital near Rhyl where i am at the moment and parked up, and started the search for the porters office where apparently i would find my room key...finding it proved quite tricky considering it was 4:30pm on New Years day and there was absolutely no one in the entire hospital (so it seemed anyway!)

Once we had found the mr porter man we trundled round to the accomodation block, only to find a big barrier across the car park (traffic cones, red and white tape cordoning it off and a big sign ' NO entry) Tricky! So we backed the car up to the sign as close as possible and started unloading all the ridiculous amounts of stuff that i'd brought with me to survive away from cardiff (this seems to consist of an awful lot of chocoolate ...i don't know how i managed to acquire so much of the stuff over christmas, but i reckon i have enough to last me the entire five weeks - which in my case is quite a substantial amount!) So eventually we found my room (and i worked out how the little black rod thing they gave me attached to a key ring opens doors like magic! The actual key that is attached to the same key ring, apparently is just decoration - cos i've not found a purpose for it yet...it must open a door somewhere...) As frannie mentioned my room is nice and new and pretty and clean and big, superior slightly to the normal standard of student accomodation, there is even a lounge with sofa's and a tv, and the kitchen is shared between four of us.

So after we dumped all my stuff in my room, fran and i continued our adventure to visit her nein (i'm sure that's probably spelt wrong) and grandpa and aunty madge. So we had a nice little dinner there and i even got to speak to frannies mummy when i was there too!

Then i made my way back to my little room and tried to sleep...it took me quite a while tossing and turning, wrestling with the plastic coated polyester bed sheets before dispatching them for my sleeping bag. Also the whole halls are kept at tropical temperatures so my wooly jumpers are barely going to get worn at all!

wow, this is turning into another mamoth Hannah Lady rambling blog entry...
This morning we all wandered over to the postgrad centre and had our welcome session before being informed that we had to go to a different hospital for our first week of opthamology... so we all piled into a car and set off to find this tiny little hospital in the middle of no where....we had a brief tour and then got sent off to go get luch in the local pub (which offered soup or panini's - only one flavour of each - at an extortionate price) and then waited about 3hrs till afternoon clinic started, basically we spent 9-5 in hospital for about 2hrs of work...how i love being a med student!

Then i did a quick dash to Sainsbury's with Carly to get me some dinner - we spent ages wandering round the shop buying way too much food, but never mind ( i did however manage to resist putting chocolate/cake/biscuit into my trolley on the basis that i have so much left over from christmas inspite of my hormonal/tired/hungry state - three cheers for me!)
So now i've wasted my evening shopping, cooking, blogging, emailing, phoning ppl who may have just come back from China etc.)

Here's to a good nights sleep and a busy morning tomorrow ( i have the afternoon off in which to "study"- which i really should do...there's some exams coming up in feb apparently...)

Love to you all
The Hannah Lady
xxxx

Proverbs 4:25-27

Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.

Proverbs 4:25-27

The girls of Heathfield road have, possibly, somewhat dubious driving skills. The record for the most minors/majors achieved in a driving test is held by one of the housemates. My own driving misdemeanors fall under a different category (I have 3 points on my license and 2 of my 3 minors were for speeding, oops!) I do feel, however, that we all have something to learn from King Solomon who obviously knew about cars (maybe the Queen of Sheba brought him one.)

This holiday the house have driven between them approx. 1700miles and haven't damaged either themselves or anybody else in the process. Mim did have a problem with one of her tyres but Luke sorted it for her before she set out.

I am currently in Bangor contemplating starting an essay our consultant has given us. The monologue went something along the lines of:

Now, I know that no one likes writing essays but it helps to distil some kind of dicipline, you can chose from several titles [one to to with neonates, one to do with paediatric services in North Wales and one that I can't remember as it was very dull]. I'd like it to be 7-8 pages long, no Miss Cain, that's typed, not handwritten, and in on Friday, yes, this Friday. You can write it in English, Welsh, or, if you wish, Latin.

After a while we came to the decision that we are to hand them in next Friday and not to tell the medical school as they'll tell him off. I think he's come to the conclusion that we're a bit stupid (hmm possibly something in that) I appear to have shocked him as he "didn't expect that any of us had come from families of more than 3" little does he know...I thought it best not to give him the full sibling count of the house (15.)

We're in halls of residence which are lovely and quiet at the moment as all the students are still on holiday, they could be in for a shock if they make too much noise- we're all down to do on-calls; setting off a firealarm at an inappropriate time could cause some difficulties between the two groups.

I didn't mean to write such a long post but it seems to have mutated into one. Maybe Hannah should write about her hospital; the accommodation is much nicer, all we have are rooms with pod ensuites and a skanky kitchen with plastic chairs.

Fran

xx