High School GCSE Science

I like to think of myself as a tolerant person. However, armchair science is something I have very little patience for. This is a situation I've found myself to be in more and more, I'm up against some very articulate people who none the less have barely understood GCSE biology/chemistry/physics. Sometimes I don't have the inclination to start teaching GCSE biology at parties, but it amazes me the conviction some people have regarding pharmaceuticals, medicine, genetic engineering, fertility treatments, cloning and so on when their science is at best, patchy.
The science taught at school level does not reveal the reality of the complexity and depth of the subject. Often at A Level things that are wrong are taught to simplify concepts only to be taught properly at university. The Na+K+ pump being involved in the initiation of an action potential for example. It doesn't play a role here, but to make A Level science doable its easier to just say that it does, rather than the ten page explanation for what actually occurs. and this is applicable to just about every topic in science! Some woman on TV once talking about GIFT with her high school(GCSE biology) knowledge. I felt a bit embarrased for her, as GCSE biology, even A Level is such a huge oversimplification for what actually happens. Want to understand the complexity of IVF? Why GIFT was popular in the 1980s but no longer ? You will need more science than the standard an A Level gives you. It will take more than a ten minute slot on daytime TV to explain.

Medical Journalists. Is there a profession more hated by doctors?! I think not! Medical Journalists need to create sensational headlines. They need to tell you about some magic pill that will save 7 million lives per year. OK, aspirin is a useful drug, in certain circumstances. But not for everyone. Not for the man who now has a gastric ulcer haemorrhaging because he read that taking an aspirin a day would save lives. Now he's in hospital due to that trash he read in some newspaper. and who gets to feel the brunt of this and take the blame? Not the medical journalists! What's even more disgusting to me, is that some medical journalists are actually medically qualified. Therefore they know the implications of the rubbish they write. For the majority of media outlets, as far as I have investigated so far, these journalists do not have a proper scientific background to understand what they are spouting, not the immediate words nor the far reaching implications.
I think the point here is, just because one reads something and one thinks they understands doesn't mean they do. I used to read medical notes before med school and thought I knew what they were all about. I didn't. Only now after years of med school do I truly realise that before med school, I knew nothing at all. One only knows how much more I will realise I don't know as my education continues.

Dr. Science or Dr. Fluff

Doctors have got to be good at science and do all the fluffy stuff.

I wonder what is easier. Take a naturally empathic person and try to teach them science. Or take a person with natural aptitude for science and try to teach them empathy? I wonder if you can guess which one I started out as ;)

Well honestly, I can’t believe it, now I’ve learned my science I feel I’ve lost any sort of people skills I once had! A patient presents with X symptom and I’m thinking of all the possible causes and the questions I must get answered in order to rule out condition Y, I found myself interrupting the patient to ask these questions! “Yes, yes all very sad and I am sad for you, but I must ask is the pain worse on breathing out?!” The thing is, I would actually genuinely feel for any of these patients in real life. I do care! That’s the whole reason I want to be a doctor, I want to help people!

So in ten minutes shall I let them ‘elaborate the presenting complaint fully’ and tell me about the neighbours and their cat and make them feel appreciated and listened to? I have discovered from medical law these types of doctors get sued far less (!) They will probably be doing less for you than a more abrupt person. What did they actually do for you?

I don’t devalue counselling. Yet counselling is not what this is. This is medicine! If I was to help any patient medically, I need to get all the information, site of pain, aggravating and relieving factors, radiation, associated symptoms, risk factors, past medical history etc.. etc.. These questions take time!! The patient answering them takes time! How did I phrase it? Did they understand? Did I patronize them? Will they remember? This is the stuff I can use to decide condition Z unlikely, X treatment won’t help, most likely to be condition C, try this treatment. There’s no time for the fluffy stuff. Patient is probably going to feel brushed aside and insignificant. And will probably end up seeing me in court. Yet this approach although I’ve made them feel awful (not an intentional thing of course), I’ve actually tried to get some nitty-gritty science working for them.

All our consultants say “do both, do both!” So far this seems impossible in such a short consultation, perhaps as my medical knowledge grows I will be able to whizz through other things effortlessly and be able to spend time with appropriate silences and sympathy. So far I can only seem to do one or the other. Demonstrate my empathy, and I run out of time to get any medicine done. Get down to business and I come across as an uncaring cow who isn’t interested in you as a person, only in your symptoms or sees you as ‘the disease.’

So, I don’t know, I’m working on being able to do both. Just next time you see the doctor and they seem to fire questions at you, it doesn’t mean they don’t care about YOU as a person. If they are letting you elaborate about your neighbours, and you feel empowered question if they are they actually doing anything for you, not just sending you home with another bottle of Gaviscon..

Pass!

Ever see those "You know you're a xx when..." and follows a list of funny things which, much of the time for me, happen to be true. In the case of the medical student my particular favourite is:

"It doesn't matter how much you study you always worry you're going to fail an exam"

Its something my non-medic friends fail to understand! If I was doing virtually any other degree the amount of hours I put in would make me disappointed if I didn't get the top grades! First! 4.0 GPA! 100% ! Yet these hours for medicine? I am not alone in my fears and think we all ask ourselves 'will I pass this time?'
I'm not one of those over-achievers that complain that they are 2% off the highest mark ever in the universe. I don't care. I am an achiever, sure. I had an offer for medical school, conditional on some very high grades and I made it. I did my extra curriculars, volunteer work, wrote a shining personal statement, (jumped through those hoops!).
Now I'm here it is a different ball game. Sometimes I think about the exams, its not just how am I going to pass it, but how does anyone anywhere manage to pass these exams?! When the tide turns and most of our former over achievers start being relieved, happy, delirious and celebratory with a pass (even a scrape) ... that's when you know you're in medical school!

Nightmare!

I have never had exam related nightmares before!!

Now I see cardiology questions (I haven't revised this topic yet) and the invigilator sees me struggling and says... Why didn't you revise the cardiovascular system? ummm... I haven't had time (yet)

Or I see pH curves and glomerular filtration rates, peak flow volumes, reed-sternberg cells, stuff I've already passed exams in. I've just got to go over it all again! Seriously these nightmares are really quite frightening! and I can't start cardiology just yet, so many other topics to do!

"Make sure you have a break over xmas!" Like they are saying it because they have to say it, but I know if they were in my position (especially with all these nightmares) they would not rest, they would make sure they revise cardiology and respiratory and renal and reproduction etc.. etc..

Happy Revision-Mass to all with upcoming January exams :)

Hoop Jumping!

Well hello hello!
It is exam season again and what better time to procrastinate and revive my old medical blog? Apart from the fact I had forgotten all my passwords and had to answer secret questions I had no idea of the answer to...

Sorry to all my fellow bloggers for abandoning you.

I read Samuel Shem's House of God. Been on my shelf for about four years before I picked it up. I really didn't want to, the review on the back saying its 'Catch 22 with stethoscopes' How can anything in medicine compare to the epic literary genius that is Catch 22? I mean Catch 22 starts off in a hospital, war and medicine and everything else to boot!
Despite myself though, I found myself liking (even enjoying House of God) and identifying with some parts in it. I don't have it to hand now, maybe next time, I don't remember the quotes verbatim and would like to share them faithfully.

A lot of medical school just seems to be hoop jumping, we're the dolphins. Perhaps the tasks initially had good intentions (like inter professional team working) yet making us sit and watch Casualty was patronizing to everyone in the room, student nurse, social worker and medic alike! Get this signed, that signed, hand that in, tick all these boxes, jump through this hoop... No it won't help you be a doctor but its a GMC requirement (oh really?) Then one day the hoops are over and you're a doctor, and no doubt have another set of hoops to start going! I imagine its the same for every profession. Thankfully for me I have finished all this curricular tick boxes and can now get down to the dirty business of revision. Once more!

Flagging?

In line with my admiration for Susie Law School's ethos I'm telling myself

I love studying!

I love exams!

Knowing stuff is cool!

I do have pink tags and highlighters and all manner of funky stationary. I do have several spots in the library I can sit in and work away (snow not helping this new found motivation sorry to be such a killjoy but i'm an adult now responsibilities sadly)...

Medical school takes everything away. And when its taken everything it asks for a bit more. Even when one feels everything has been given med school will find something one didn't even realise they had and take it.

Colour Clash

ooh pink and orange really clash! i'll have to change that on the blogs I am following... maybe.

and in the dissertation I worked my socks off on made sense of 40 journal articles and goodness knows how many texbook sections.. working and reworking, drafting and cutting and fine tuning and rewording and polishing and I received a pass grade. I suppose I did say coursework was not my strong point. I was (and in a way still am) actually proud of the finished article though. Mistakenly so?

Oh how I hate medicine.