Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun
Posted by studentdoctoruk on January 30, 2008
Well a week or so since I last posted and lots has happened - I now have my own office! (more later), but now a brief run down of recent events.
Sat & Sun (18th & 19th)
Spent all day being taught about the basics of pre-hosptial trauma. I’m doing my ETA (Emergency Transport Attendent) course with St John Ambulance, its an 8 day course with an assessment at the end which allows me to go to events and work on an ambulance. Its not a paramedic course, nor does it lead to me being a technician. Essentially when I finish I’ll be doing advanced first aid and perhaps some A&E support work.
I’m really enjoying the course - I was a bit apprehensive about it before we started as being a medical student in St John a lot of the time people just expect you to know everything without being taught because they don’t realise that we don’t actually get taught about trauma/pre-hospital things in Uni and unless you seek out the experiences, med students won’t necessarily have experience of those areas.
The people on this course are fantastic and the paramedic that is training us is great. He assumes nothing, doesn’t make you feel stupid asking daft questions and obviously enjoys teaching. The 2 days went so quickly and I learn a lot - it was the first time that anyone has actually shown me which parts of all the systems examinations are relevant for a primary survey and how to accurately assess someones GCS score. These are both things that I have read and learnt about before but never been shown how to do in practice. Looking forward to the next weekends in Feb.
Mon-Fri
Started my intercalated year with a week of lectures on, amongst other things, how to write a dissertation*, ethics and research, designing a successful project, literature searching, and how to use endnote. Most of the lectures were good, some were awful and we didn’t have any 9am starts!
*the thought of actually writing my dissertation at the end of this year scares the hell out of me - not helped by the fact that I have 2 supervisers but no defined project. How on earth does anyone write a 30,000 word document! 150 references, its a sickening thought.
Lunch time - will write more later - lots to talk about.
Take care
SD
January 31, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Glad the pre-hospital training has been useful.
I think that all med students should under go our Paramedic course as part of their medical training. It may add a few months onto the degree but it will save a lot of heartache and embarrassment later on in a doctors career.
30,000 words!!! I,ve just sent in one of my essays which I struggled with, and its only 1500 words! I,d have thought shorter dissertations would have meant quality work rather than a 30,000 tome. Quality instead of quantity and all that stuff!
150 references!!!
Best of luck….Kingmagic.
January 31, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I don’t think pre-hospital medicine will ever be part of the medical cirriculum, especially with paramedic training going down the university route now. We barely get any first aid training as an undergraduate - in fact in the first 4 years all we get is 2 hours on basic life support. Scary isn’t it.
I do agree though that a knowledge of pre-hospital medicine is invaluable though and I’m glad I did my placement with the ambulance service - I’m hoping to do more too this year with paramedic practitioners.
The dissertation limit is suppose to just be a guide but realistically we are expected to do almost that much. Suppose I should get on with sorting out exactly what it is I’m doing! Current plan is service evaluation of a paramedic practitioner scheme.