I am a selfish git

Me after my genetics exam, (On finding out we were starting the Introductory clinical course three hours later)





OMG - I am SO tired.
After two weeks and seven exams, they finally finished at 1030 yesterday with the genetics module, which was absolutely horrible. The genetics module, for me, was a murky blott on the landscape, where the module leader decided that we were not to have any proper teaching or help during the group work sessions. This led to us sitting there going around and around in circles and when someone had the cheek to complain, they were told that these complaints are the same every year and we should trust the way the module was run. This resulted in a demoralised group of students and very little learning. Why does a little voice in my head cry out "If you have had the same pissing complaints, year after year, is it not time to start bloody listening to them? What do we know eh - we are only students.

Anyway - the exam was awful, with a big Hardy Weinberg claculation at the end. Don't ask me about Hardy Weinberg (Another group session where not only did the group tutor not help, but actually told us that he did not know the answers.....GREAT! All I do know about hardy Weinberg is that it's two blokes who were kind enough to create a maths calculation so that we can work out frequency of genetic disease - really handy thing to be able to do..... Not)

I think Leicester must want blood from us as we then started the introductory clinical course at 1330! We were like a big field of cabbages sitting there reeling. The five year course don't have to do it until next year so we joined the second year and although I moaned like a bugger, I am actually quite chuffed as we are doing a course that the five year cohort will have to wait a year for - and it brings it home that this course is so much faster.

I really had my worries about the GEP. I heard some horror stories about it from other students and got worried enough to also apply for the five year course. If anyone is thinking of doing this (Applying to two courses at the same uni) get in touch as I have some views on it!

Having done three months of the course I would have to say that I think that the GEP is well worth doing. I live with three students on the five year course and there hasn't been a massive difference between the two courses so far. Basically you have no life regardless of whether you are doing it for five years or four, so why not work a little harder and get it over with! The only real difference in semester one was that we did an extra module during the week (Health Psychology) and an extra add-on module called "Health in the Community" (Not exactly an inspiring way of spending time, especially if you are over 25)

This semester, we are doing 6 modules:

Membranes and receptors
Musculo skeletal system
Reproduction
Cardiovascular
Health and society
Mechanisms of disease
There is also a clinical course (The one we stared yesterday) where we go on the ward every week and do history taking, system examination, problem solving etc.

I am SO glad that the exams are finished - the last three weeks have probably been the toughest I have ever known. What has become really clear to me is that you have to be a selfish git to study medicine. I really mean that. You have to put yourself first and blank out friends and family needs because at exam time, there is so much work that the only way of getting through is sitting in a room studying from when you get up until when you go to bed. A few people have commented that they have even felt guilty sleeping during the past few weeks. The Good news is that this only seems to happen around exams and the rest of the time, we get away with not having too much to do.

Anyway, back to being a selfish git - this has been hard for me and I am sure other mature students must feel the same way. If you are 18 with no husband, animals or homes to run, perhaps things would be easier, as you can get away with just sorting yourself out. When you have commitments, it really is hard ignoring them, but as I said, I found the only way was to blank everyone out and just be ....a selfish git!

So here I am at the end of exams with three dogs that stink (No time to clean their teeth) A deserted dad, a moaninh mum, a smelly husband (No time to remind him to wash and his knickers are all dirty because I just haven't had the time to wash them)a dirty house and an ironing basket that reaches the ceiling. In all this disarray, the new course starts Monday and the workload looks MASSIVE.

Here we go again.

Breakthrough!

So it's Monday and we are half way through exams. I have not left my room for three weeks and have no life or thoughts other than revision, panic, revision, panic.

The good news is that I had a breakthrough at the beginning of 2007. When I look back, I realise that I felt like I have been playing at being a medical student. I have never actually felt like I deserve to be here, and have felt unlikely to make it through the first year.

My reasons for this that my dad had a massive stroke on May 17th which left him unable to speak or look after himself. He was still in hospital when I started at medical school and it was horrendously hard to concentrate and learn, when he was faced with not having anywhere to go or anyone to look after him. He moved into a rehab flat in Mid November and then the fun really started because he decided he would get regular taxis to his bungalow. I would then get phone calls to say the rehab flat workers didn't know where he was and I would end up coming home from Leicester (Two hour drive) to find him and persuade him to go back. The stress of this has been indescribable and things got worse when, on December 23rd, social services decided he had been in the rehab flat for long enough and give him 48hrs notice that he was going into a care home. Nice Christmas present.

Christmas was awful - just a constant round of trying to keep his spirits up and travelling to and from his care home.

When I visit my dad, there doesn't seem to be any sense of him being glad to see me or that he is grateful for the effort I have made. I think he is gutted that I have not dumped medical school and looked after him full time and bitter as hell that this has happened to him in the first place. My guilt of having him in a care home is constant and my only way of coping is to block it out and not think about it.

Part of me is angry at him because he has abused himself into this stroke by drinking, smoking and eating crap for the past twenty years and has let his house get into such a state that social services have now deemed it unfit for living in. The other part of me knows that his dad also had a stoke at the age of 60 and so perhaps he would have had one without the extra risk factors.

I have been dragged down by all of this - I wouldn't be human if I hadn't.

My breakthrough occurred straight after New Year when I really started hammering the revision. I realised that I could do the work and that that more than anything, I really want to do the course. All I can do is hope for the best with these exams and then start afresh next week when we start semester two.