Last placement before exams

My best placement ever as a medical student was a four week attachment to the A&E department at Blackburn in my third year and I have since looked forward to returning to this hospital. Enthusiastic and motivated students get a lot out of this hospital as the staff are ever willing to allow students to get involved. Over the years, I have met many senior students who spoke highly of this hospital in delivering high quality fifth year placement, and I thought I have to see what the fuss is all about for myself.

It was an 8 week placement - 4 weeks of GP and 4 weeks of general surgery. I thoroughly enjoyed both. I have written about my GP placement - on being given responsibilities that I've never been entrusted before and being challenged. The two GPs supervising were very competent and hardworking doctors but not without a life, and I aspire to be like them. It has revived my interest for general practice and now I can just about imagine myself enjoying GP as a job for the rest of my life.

The hospital placement was equally satisfying, even with my deep-seated dislike for surgery. I got stressed out when clerking in new patients because I wanted to do them properly fully, not like my previous clerkings which had always stopped at 'history and examination' and neglected the impression and management plan, putting in cannula and taking blood, arranging imaging, reviewing the results, writing up drug chart and presenting it to a senior doctor. I have finally understood and experience the need to PRIORITISE (like cooking for my family, really!) Seriously, I was stressed out, but the doctors were very encouraging and kept said I was doing well. I also had a go at presenting patient at a shift handover (which was a station examined in last year's finals) which involved lots of palpitation and butterfly in the stomach. When not on-call, I helped look after the patients perioperatively. On the second last day of my placement, I surprised myself by actually enjoying a day in theatre. I saw gallstones in real life, assisted the surgeons and the anaesthetists and properly examine a hernia.

There is always a few patients that every doctor remembers forever. For me, there were three this time. I was the first to see them and I diagnosed all of them correctly: they all had cancer, the scans confirmed it. While I couldn't resist the excitement of being the one to have elicited the important symptoms and signs on the history and examination to bring such important diagnosis to light, the people looking after them and I know that there is nothing to be happy about because there's basically no cure as their diseases were far too advance. They could well be dying as we speak. Which is why, I think, I will remember them forever.

The most unusual feature of all is the structured teachings that we received while on placement in Blackburn. There is weekly orthopaedic, surgical and radiology teachings as well as lectures on various specialties and practical clinical skills sessions for revision (not that I attend all of them or that they were on every week). On every Tuesdays, about 10 hospital and community tutors come together for our bedside teaching, PBL session and student grandround. The tutors knew us by our names, something that, as Manchester students, we are not accustomed. There was this award for a member in every PBL group for being, not the brightest but the one who contributes the most and did all the work (akin to the man-of-the-match title), and I received the award for my group! I knew they created this just for a laugh. But still, it's nice to be recognized and I'm really proud of my contribution! So that was the Blackburn tale. It's a shame that I won't be returning after the exam. Suffice to say, if I pass my exams, I have Blackburn to thank.

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