I feel like I’ve been neglecting this blog. To be honest, I’ve only decided to post something today because WordPress emailed me to ask where I’ve been – was nice of them, I felt loved.

It has been a very busy 6 months, working through my clinical rotations – frankly I’m exhausted and very glad to have a couple of weeks off now (though, significantly less than I’m used to!).

Clinical medicine is so very different to pre clinical – you are the master of your own destiny, able to choose when and where you go, what you see and how much work you do. Obviously by the end of it you need to know everything about everything and be able to practice medicine so you need to make sure that you learn everything, but at the same time it’s a nice change of pace from endless dull lectures about subjects that barely seem relevant. That is the main difference between clinical and pre clinical in my book; you are seeing your future job – most of my time is spent hassling F1s (interns) for jobs and seeing patients in clinic – if it’s in a specialty you fancy then obviously you’re going to enjoy it more – if it is in for example.. psychiatry.. then it’s 2 months of boredom wondering why the hell you’ve dragged yourself out of bed and across the city for this voodoo. That’s enough about psych for now.. I will revisit this shortly I’m sure.

It also makes everything seem a lot more..real.. some things from lectures suddenly click and make sense when they are applied to a patient, they aren’t just endless lists of symptoms and signs, they are a person presenting to you, telling you what’s wrong with them and asking for your help. It’s amazing the connections that you start to make, the ideas that you start to form quickly and effortlessly, almost like you’ve spent 2 years training for this moment. It’s such a satisfying feeling, to see a patient, take a history, do an exam and then go tell your SHO.. “This person has appendicitis” and be 120% sure of it. To the extent that the SHO books them for laproscopic appendectomy.. and the consultant removes their appendix.. their perfectly normal, healthy appendix and writes ?endomeitriosis on the theatre report.

I think that’s enough for now, will come back tomorrow, or maybe the weekend with another – I’ve got a lot to discuss from the last couple of months.

To finish off, I want to say how shocked I was to hear about the 2 Newcastle Uni medics who were murdered in Borneo. To go on an elective to provide healthcare to a disadvantaged population and to not come home is awful, my thoughts and prayers are with their families, friends and colleagues. Rest in peace gentlemen.