Morning tea breaks, 2 hour lunch breaks, afternoon tea breaks - I have woke up and gone to heaven

I have now finished my seven week placement in general medicine and have this week, moved to general practice for seven weeks.

My first impressions are that, bloody hell this is a civilised profession - they have start times and finish times and tea breaks, where nice ladies on reception bring them tea (In china cup and saucer - result) They earn loadsamoney and only have to do a little bit of OOH cover. It seems to be the antithesis of hospital medicine and these doctors actually seem to have a life.

It is interesting then, that when I got together with my group today lots of them are hating their GP placement and can't wait to get back to acute care. They felt that most patients rolling through the door didn't need to come to see their GP (Minor skin rashes and ailments that are already getting better when they attend) They also felt that after a morning of seeing children with Hayfever, they wanted to climb out of the window and run to the hills (Or the nearest hospital)

Me, on the other hand LOVES it!! Well I would if I wasn't so terrified - I am absolutely bloody cacking it. I got so stressed on Tuesday that I had to nip outside to try to breath. The problem you see, is that on the wards, we are in groups of six / seven medical students and so when questions are asked, one of us can usually pipe up. In GP land however it is just me and the GP. There is nowhere to hide and it is butt clenchingly terrifying.

For example, a nice lady Mrs A brought her two children in this week. She had recognised that both of them had hayfever and she wanted a prescription for piriton so that she could leave and return her children to school. Instead, what she got was Anna the pale, shaking, medical student. This was the first visit that the GP told me to handle from beginning to end and hell, did I make a meal of it. She got asked about her kids' bladder and bowels (Commonly affected in hayfever....not) and about other "pertinent" points such as "Have they been abroad lately"

I made a mess - a real hellish mess. I know that if I had not had the GP sitting in the corner I would have been absolutely fine. I could easily have handled this, prescribed and sent them off to school. Instead, I went to pieces and I can just picture the mum pissing herself laughing to her mates about what this freak from Wales had been waffling on about.

I think that if I could find a way of developing my confidence, I would be half way there. I have spent my time at medical school feeling like an impostor and even now don't feel like a real medical student. I need to get me some ego!

Breaks are for wimps

Having been in clinical medicine for a grand total of 14 weeks, I would say that Medicine is a very macho profession:

• Doctors don't take breaks....ever. We start ward round at 9am and it finishes around 1300. Four hours standing to attention with no 5 mins put aside for a quick drink. When the ward round finishes, clinic starts and so there is no room for lunch either. At 1700, teaching starts and that will carry on until the consultant gets bleeped away (Or until he finally realises that he has a wife and baby who expected him home three hours ago)

I don't know any other profession that expects it's colleagues to function like this. Every factory and ward I have ever worked on honours basic tea and meal breaks. As a nurse - the wards were manic but a part of the senior nurses role was to make sure that the nurses got their breaks. Medicine seems to be about seeing how long you can stay on your feet before falling over. If you succumb and fall over - that is a sign of weakness. If I was not in medicine, I would assume that they don't take breaks because they are too busy, but on my ward this is simply not true. They don't take breaks because that is not what doctors do.

• Medical students get brain washed into thinking that this is normal very, very quickly. I suppose most of them have never worked before and so perhaps presume that this is how every one works.
  
• Surgeons are even worse - as a student it's generally best to avoid the OT at all costs. On the day I was daft enough to wander in, I found myself holding a retractor for a six hour stretch. I was too scared to ask to go for a wee because the surgeon commented in the first half hour "I hope you're made of sturdier stuff than the anorexic waif we had in here yesterday. She passed out after a few hours and then said it was because we made her stand up for too long