Its only now I've managed to find time to make a post about the last two days of the taster course so the 4th and 5th April 2012 so this post is about a week late! Didn't manage to take pictures so this is a text based post I'm afraid!
4th April 2012:
So we had a later start (10am - Hellz yeah!) and we had some interesting sessions that day. We had a pathology practical, where basically we had stations where we had a "patient" who had died and we had to work out the cause of death using the history of the patient and some clues lying around them. So a woman who had died of skin cancer had some tanning lotion bottles around her, a picture of her and her husband in a tropical country, all hints leading to the skin cancer causing her death. I suppose I really loved the investigative side to it because you are supposed to use your brain and think outside the box of how someone could have died. So a very interesting session.
Later, we did medical ethics. So when I saw "medical ethics" on the timetable, I was like "ughhhh, I hate ethicsss" because I do RS as one of my subjects. But I really enjoyed that session as it made me questioned my opinions and beliefs which is why I chose to do it at AS level. That session made me enjoy ethics and has motivated me to work harder in the RS exams in June. So one of the cases that came up was Tony Nicklinson, who suffers from locked-in syndrome which is where the patient is awake and concious but cannot move or communicate because their whole body is paralysed. Nicklinson thinks his life isn't worth living anymore and would like the option for an assisted suicide. So one of the questions we had to debate was "Should physician assisted suicide be made legal?" - Ah, now this is a tough one to debate! We also had other dilemmas such as you're a GP and a 14 year old girl comes to you and tells you that she and her boyfriend are contemplating having sex and requests the pill, do you give it to her? And the usual organ donor - who do you give the organ to. How it usually works for the organ donor is on the basis of who is the most likely to survive after the transplant and who has been on the waiting list the longest.
Then lunch (Yum!), then we had a surgical session where a brain surgeon gave us a talk and showed us a couple of videos of brain surgery and heart surgery. Really interesting, nearly convinced me to become a surgeon! Then we had a practical where we had a fake wound and we had to stitch it up! Good fun, but I think suturing on a real person might be quite difficult!
5th April 2012:
This was the last day :( . Not much to talk about on this day, it was very relaxed.
Had a talk from the student mentors about research, one of them even got her work published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) - Amazing! Then I talk from Professor Julian Ma about medical research, this was really fascinating I found myself contemplating doing research when I'm older. Found out some interesting facts too, like how they are currently doing research into putting vaccines into food such as potatoes so vaccinations are easily accessible in developing countries which is really cool. I feel research puts forward very intelligent ideas that can potentially change the world so I am very interested in doing research when I'm older.
Then a reflection, just had to put down some ideas down on how the spring school went and what we learnt from it because of course, reflection is a very important skill in medicine.
Afterwards we had a talk from a neo-natal doctor and a tour of the paediatrics department at St Georges Hospital. Seeing all the cute little babies made me want just cuddle them and treat them so they can lead healthy, happy childhoods.
End of the day, we got certificates and letters to prove that we've done the spring school and have completed all four days! - SWEET!!!
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