Gastro ward: Year 3

I was looking forward to seeing patients who had very different problems to those on the cardiac and respiratory wards. Our lead tutor for the placement, a middle aged man with a friendly face, sat himself down at the table. He introduced himself and said: " so let me guess, seeing as you're all third year students, you constantly feel like you're a spare part?", my group unanimously chorused a "yes". Our tutor was astoundingly accurate.

As medical students we take too long, get things wrong and take up too much space if I gave you a pound for every time my peers and I have been rejected from a clinic "because the room is too small") then I'd be broke, and I would have no chance in hell of being able to pay off my ever expanding student debts. I'd also like to point out that none of us are horizontally gifted. Why is it that we are so often denied access to the wards, clinics and patients that we are supposed to be seeing? A nurse once asked me what a medical student does; I explained to her that I can take blood, cannulate and clerk patients. She was delighted at her new found knowledge, scuttled off and returned with a thick set of blood forms waiting to be filled in and with instructions of who to take blood from. Perfect, I can meet the patients, take their blood and find out a little more about their condition. However, I think this problem of medical student access goes far beyond the knowledge of our existence to other health professionals. I believe that our experiences are highly dependent on our solid integration into wards and with junior and senior doctors. This is highly variable within my own hopsital and university let alone the other 40 medical schools round the country. The best attachments that I have had were in a cottage hopsital in the Pennines: the paeds doctors knew our names, we called them by their first name and we were bleeped when rare and exciting opportunities arose. 

iIn order to add to my finances, I've helped out in tutor training sessions. These tutors are often middle grade doctors who are willing to teach students as well as carry out their clinical duties. In a recent session, we had a large debate about the state of medical education. It was really disheartening to hear that the feeling of 'spare part' has pervaded throughout modern medical school education and training. However, I'm convinced that this wasn't always the case and that we can return to a more personal level of teaching. I think that this depends on the willingness of firm leads, their staff and the size of the medical school. A lot of research has gone into the theory of medical education and there are several models of student education, the  names of which escape me right now. I hope that when I am qualified, things will have changed for medical students.

I don't want you to think that all medical training is like this: cue a thursday morning on a postnatal ward. It was September, 9 months after a very chilly winter when clearly there were a lot of couples who were feeling cold and had nothing to do... there had been a lot of births overnight and the reg and FY2 were running behind on neonatal checks, which check done, allowed the baby to be discharged. Our teaching had been cancelled (I can't remember what the excuse was) and my group were keen to help out so we wondered over to the post natal ward. After the usual rigmarole of hand washing and letting our presence know to the ward staff, we were greeted by the Reg "hurrah!" he exclaimed! "the cavalry have arrived!" and he smiled in earnest at us. I thought he was joking but one hour later the examinations were all performed, the reg was happy he could have a coffee break, we were delighted to use the skills we had been taught and the exhausted parents were delighted to be told that they were one step closer to being discharged. All in all this was a great morning. I wish every day of medical school was like this.

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