Medical Roadshow!

So on Tuesday and Wednesday (20th and 21st/3/12), I had to go to my college's other site. Here BSMS (Brighton and Sussex Medical School, one of my options) ran a medical road show. During these two days, we learnt how to take history of a patient (this is where you get the patients medical history such as symptoms, presenting complaint, history of presenting complaint, family history etc to be able to diagnose the patient), we also had a lectures at undergraduate level detailing how hypertension (high blood pressure) is caused and a neurology lecture. From this I learnt that the human skull has 22 bones. Again, we learnt about the heart! But I did the heart in the earlier part of my AS biology course, but it never hurts to remind yourself the key components of the heart. We did this activity where we had to imagine we were the deoxygenated / oxygenated blood and show the route of the blood through the heart. (As you can see in the last photos)

We also learnt a few clinical skills like learning to take blood pressure and learning how to check the heart with a stethoscope. BSMS showed us a way they teach anatomy to their students. This is called living anatomy. This is where they get the students to be interactive with each other and draw on each other, showing the anatomy of each others bodies. I found this way of learning really interesting and unique and I absolutely loved the idea of it but instead of drawing on each others bodies we drew on t-shirts which were still fascinating and I learnt a lot about our chest region. Well the basics anyway.

Another activity we did that I absolutely loved was called Playing the detective. We were handed a patient called Mark Beaton *He wasn't a real patient* . He came in confused and a present complaint of not being able to see straight. We had to pick categories such as history, bedside tests, imagery etc to gain more insight to what was wrong with Mr Beaton in order to diagnose him. So in the excitement potentially being able to diagnose someone everyone forgot that the basis of being able to diagnose well is taking a good medical history because this is where you gain important information about the patient and their medical history. Because we failed to take a good history we missed out on important information; the fact he had been in an accident earlier and hadn't been checked up after this accident. And due to this we potentially wasted a lot of money and resources doing unnecessary tests! From that activity I learnt the importance of history taking and a good doctor needs to be able to take a good history. I also learnt that I loved the investigative side to diagnosing a patient! So much brain power is needed and its an amazing feeling once you get the correct diagnosis.

Here are some pictures of the t-shirts we did: