Exciting times

Well, I finally made it. After all the lectures and exams I am finally getting out there in a clinical setting. This medicine s**t just got real!

I've had a great 2 weeks so far, firstly with community children's services and then on a hospital renal ward this week.
A few highs and lows from clinical phase so far.

Highs 

• Visiting infant school for the day and meeting a charming little boy with transverse myelitis who will likely be in a wheelchair for the rest of hid days but won't let that stop him making his own way in the world.
• Getting real extended contact with patients so I am a friendly face they can recognise and have a chat with and not just a student who came and poked and prodded them once. 
• Invaluable experience from first hand consultant teaching. Being praised by the consultant for my knowledge of the patient histories after he'd just yelled at all his registrars. (Granted I'd had a lot more time on my hands than they had)
• Wandering around the hospital in scrubs with a stethoscope in and feeling like I belong there (shallow I know- but we're all allowed those little pleasures in life!)

Lows

• Starting work at 7am - the tea hasn't kicked in by that time!
• A 4 hour talk from a clinical physchologist on children dying. Heavy, yes. Useful, yes. but by the third hour we had had more than enough information and were just being needlessly depressed
• Being yelled at by an irate frenchman when the busy nurse who he had assumed was his personal translator could not be found!

I wouldn't change it for the world. If the first 2 weeks were anything to go by, the next 2 years are going to be fun!