Snow!!

I woke up at half six yesterday morning freezing, wishing that I could just curl up in my duvet and go back to sleep. Waking up cold always puts me in a bad mood. I opened my curtains and saw that it had snowed and suddenly all my anger disappeared. It was crazy! Christmas songs immediately filled my thoughts and I forgot that I had to go training for a while. For once I loved being up so early. The estate was pure white, and my footsteps were the first to tread on the snowy blanket. I really should have taken pictures at that time.
 The snow fell again last night and the paths were really slippy as I was going babysitting. Hopefully it will stay and get us a few days off school :)

   

The Korean War Project

I finally finished my powerpoint this week and presented it to Ms. McHale's 3rd year class today. I was a bit nervous because I don't really like talking in front of big groups, but you just get on with it. It was a relief to get it finished. Now I have to make a start on my local history project which is due in a few weeks.. it seems like there is no end to the projects!

Course in Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin

Last week Aoife and I went to an "Introduction to Paediatric Hospital life" course in Our Lady's for TY students. We got the 7.15 bus into town each morning and then got the 123 out to Crumlin. On the first day we were happy to see some familiar faces, old friends of ours who we know from years ago. It was really good to see them again :) We were given a timetable which laid out the week ahead of us. Each day we had talks from around 6 - 8 different representatives of the various departments. There were far too many to name them all! After my week of work experience in Connolly Hospital, it was interesting to hear the different perspectives from doctors working in a paediatric hospital. I also really enjoyed the talk from one of the nurses in particular, who really sold the idea of doing nursing to me.
   We were in lectures for the whole week apart from the first day, when we were given a tour of a few of the labs. We got to see a child's kidney tumour. It was absolutely massive. I had no idea how big they were! It was so weird looking too, it was a weird whitish colour with green and black wiggly edges. We also got to look at blood through a microscope. Most of the talks were really interesting. Some of them were good, because they made me realise that I definetely did NOT want to go anywhere near that specialty! I was glad I did the course, because it opened my eyes to other courses I might be interested in such as Pharmacy and Psychology.
   After the talk and my work experience, I have decided I would really enjoy the day to day work of a doctor. After talking to so many different people in the health profession over the past few weeks, I have learned just how much work I will have to put in over the next ten years or more if I actually want it. I am naturally lazy though, so I'm still unsure whether its a career for me!

Work Experience Days 3, 4 & 5 :)

Each day I was at the hospital from 8 (or sometimes before if we were early) until 5:30. Every night when I got into the car, it suddenly hit me just how tired I was. Each morning, I went to the morning case hand over meeting first thing. Then I went on ward rounds with the team, and after that I did different things each day. I loved seeing the patients each day, as a lot of them were there for the duration of my placement. Most of them were really friendly, and some of them talked to me. I really enjoyed intereacting with them, and I learnt so much about how to talk to patients. Each day I ate with the team. I really liked hearing their stories and banter, and they were all so friendly I didnt feel too out of place. Whenever we had an interesting case, someone would always explain the technical stuff to me. I learned so many medical terms and conditions that I had never heard of before!
    On Friday I got to go to Cardiology for a little while, and I got to see an ECG, a stress test and a heart echo being done on patients. It was really interesting. It was amazing to see the heart as a 3D moving shape, and all the valves from various angles, rather than the flat picture in our science books! Over the week I also observed and assisted the intern when she was taking blood from patients, and I learned how hard it can be to get a good vain! One poor patient had to have the needle put in 4 different places befroe we got any blood! I learned a good technique from one of the S.H.Os about taking arterial blood so hopefully I wont forget it!
   Every day I was excited going to the hospital. Every day was different in it's own way, and I loved it for that. Every patient brought a new challenge to the day and although the days are long, the hours actually fly by. Even the doctors who have worked there for years say it. It was really nice to see how thankful the patients are for the care the doctors give them, there are loads of cards around the place and often the patients and their families shake the hands of every doctor on the team before we leave them.
   I loved talking to the doctors, and I was so grateful for their honest opinions. It was great to get an insight into their personal lives, and I saw how much commitment the job requires. They gave me really good advice, and they told me of ways to  do medicine if i don't get the points. I had an amazing week :)

Work Experience Day 2 :)

      This morning I arrived at the hospital at 7.35a.m, 25 minutes early. It was kind of annoying that I was early again, because we didn't expect the traffic to be so good. Still though it's much better than being late! :) I walked around for a while, and then went to my locker. At 8 I went to one of the conference rooms, where I met my team and many other teams. There was free tea and coffee and some breakfast :) One of the consultants presented cases to everyone, and the crowd made suggestions on how to progress with the patient's treatment. After that, all the other teams left and Dr. Wan, who I was working with yesterday made a presentation to the endocrinology team. It was about a case study on a drug used by patients with type 1 diabetes. Afterwards, there was a discussion about the drug, and then the ward lists were handed out.
     We began the ward rounds after that. I liked seeing the familiar faces of the patients we had yesterday, and seeing how they have progressed/regressed since yesterday. The most senior member of the team from yesterday was not with us today, and there was a more relaxed atmosphere about the team. The doctor who took his place as leader of the team was really good with the patients, even in one particularly difficult case.
     After the break, I was with Carmel for a while, and then she asked me and Ali the sub-I to do some flow charts. It took us a while to find a free computer and to figure out the programme for checking labs, but once we got the hang of it we got them done pretty quick. We did that until two, and then we had lunch.
     After lunch, we found Carmel again, and she was very busy. She asked Ali to get some bloods from a patient, and I went with her to A&E. I spent the rest of the day running tests with Carmel. I watched her change a catheter and take blood from an artery. She taught me how to use a blood analysis machine. It was really cool, I never knew you could put a needle of blood straight into a machine and it would tell you the amount of each constituent contained in the sample straight away. My day ended at 5.30. I think I learnt a lot today and I found it really interesting :)

Work Experience Day Uno :)

I got there half an hour early this morning. I met a nurse at the door to the academic centre who directed me to where I was told to go. I went to that office, butthere was no one there yet, so I decided to go for a walk around the grounds. It was absolutely freezing out and my breath formed little White puffs in the icy air as I walked. I could see a few patients in the A&E waiting room, but apart from that the hospital seemed as though it hadn't really woken up yet.
At nine, I went back to the office I was supposed to go to, but there was still no one there. I was kind of expecting this, I don't know why, it seemed too quiet or something. So I just walked back to the top of the stairs where there was a woman using the photocopying machines. I asked her if she knew where The woman I was supposed to go to was, and she didn't know who I was talking about so she brought me to a nice man called Noel. He tried to find the woman, and when he realised she wasn't in, he showed me how to use the pagers and phones to contact the team and gave me a locker. Then he told me where they were, and just as I was about to leave him and try find them in the maze of buildings, he said "sure I'll come with you for the walk". I was so happy when he said that because no doubt I would have got lost as soon as I left the academic centre!
We met the team in the redwood ward which has nice red curtains, and Noel went back to the academic centre. The team then went around the wards checking on the endocrinology patients who were mixed into wards among people with all kinds of things wrong with them. It was really interesting and fast paced, sometimes I felt sorry for the patients because although I knew the doctors cared about them, they didn't really look at them when they spoke as they were writing and Reading the charts.
We had a break for about 15 minutes in the cafe, all the team together. There is a student doctor called Ali on the team, and it was his first day today too. He is quiet when the other doctors are around but he's really nice, and I'm glad he's there because sometimes they forget I'm not a medical student and ask me the questions! So I just look at him and he answers.. They probably think I'm just a really stupid medical student haha..
After the break, I did filed charts, ordered tests, found patient records and x-rays and loads of other stuff with an intern called Carmel. She is absolutely lovely (and she never forgets I'm not a medical student so she expalains everything :) we walked around really fast and were constanty rushing from patient to patient, but it was my favourite part of the day. Carmel had to take blood from a woman with really bad alzheimers, and the poor woman kept screaming because she didn't understand what was happening. Her husband was with her, and bless him he was so cute he was so patient with her, and you could tell he really loves her. The. He was asking if she had made any progress and if Carmel thought she'd be disharged soon. When she said no his tone just dropped. That was the saddest part of the day :(
After loads of rushing around with Carmel, she told me to go have lunch with kassan another member of the team. He told me about where he went to college and asked about my life. I had been a bit wary of him initially, but he's actually really funny.
After lunch, I went to the clinic with kassan, where I worked with Dr. Wan for the rest of the day. It was much more relaxed than earlier in the day, which made me realise how tired I was. Dr Wan explained everything really well as he read the charts, and the. The patients woukd come in for a consult. Afterwards he recorded his notes on his taperecorder and explained his diagnosis. The patients were really friendly, and although some of the cases were similar, I found them all interesting. The clinic ended at 5:30 and my day was over.
Tomorrow I have to be there at 8 for breakfast and a meeting. I'm excited to go back, I just hope it goes as well as today :)

Dublin Institute of Design

On the Friday before midterm, my mini company group went to Dublin institute of Design to meet with Brendan Dwyer, an architect who agreed to give us advice on the design of our spoover. He was really nice and listened to us intently. He gave us paper and we each sketched what we imagined the product to look like. He then got us to begin making a basic prototype our of easy to carve wood and clay. We examined how existing products work and recorded their faults. We made a list of functions we want the product to have and got a sense where we are going with the company. Overall it was a very productive and positive day :)