End of GP placement

It has been ages since I last updated my blog. I am busy all right, but am not THAT busy. I just don't feel like writing.

I am about to finish my 7 weeks Community Placement ie GP placement. How do I find it? Quite relax, I have to say. Not relax, as in I don't have anything to do. Relax as in I don't have to go in to the surgery for the whole 5 days. We were only obliged to attend the surgery for 3 days in a week. I am expected to go in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Monday is always my full day. Starts from 9 til 6-ish. Might even drag til 7 if there are loads of emergency patients. Apparently, these emergency patients prefer to come later in the day! Oh well, I am not complaining.

Every Tuesday, I will be in Sheffield for my group tutorial.

It is either Wednesday or Friday when I have to go to the 7 am surgery. Which means I have to wake up as early as 5 am to catch the 6 am tram to Tinsely. From Tinsely, I have to walk all the way to Brinsworth Medical Centre which normally took me around 30 minutes to get there! Oh well, I take that as a good form of exercise. I do find myself taking less than 30 minutes now to go there. Which is a good sign. My stamina is finally catching up.

Thursday is my day off. Normally, I would feel too guilty to spend the whole day doing things other then work. Huhu. Quarter or half of the day is OK. Not the whole day. Anyway, I do have my audit to work on, so I could not manage to take the day off anyway.

And now, I only have 1 day left for the placement. Sad? Not really. Excited? A little bit, perhaps. Not that I did not enjoy the placement. I do. I just feel that I am ready for a change now. 7 weeks has been a bit too long. Haha. How on earth am I going to cope with working life later on? Haish.

This placement has been a wake up call for me. It is time to do more work, Aliaa. By now, history and examination should be flawless. Well, to be fair, maybe not flawless. But near to flawless. And at the stage I am now, I should be able to come up with a concrete management plan. Or so they say. Huhu.

My first experience to handle an entire consultation by myself was quite scary. The complexity of the patient's case is far from difficult. Easy, i must say. It is just a SIMPLE COLD! The patient complained of coughing, runny nose and etc. I took the history, did the examination. Fine. By the time it gets to management plan, my feet is no longer on the steady ground. I am doubting myself. Doubting my own clinical judgement. What if I am wrong? Based on his history and examination, I believe it is just common cold. But I can't help but thinking what if it turns out to be pneumonia or something worse like that? A man's life is at stake. I kept looking at my supervisor for reassurance when I was telling that patient my management plan. He simply nodded, assuring me that it is ok to go on. At the end of my consultation, he took over. And I simply could not resist the feeling of relief straight after that. It was just a simple case, but I felt my responsibility over that patient is ocean-deep. Huhu.