First week of clinicals!

Yeah baby i'm a clinical student! So on my first day I did 3 chest drains, a lumbar puncture and repaired an abdominal aortic aneurysm in theatre........
Well yes, if I was on ER I suppose that's about average for what a medical student would do on their first day! However, being based in Mansfield life is a little different! So, kitted out in my shiney new shoes, crisp white shirt and smoooooth blue tie I stepped onto the wards only to be greeted by.........nothing! Yes girls and boys, nothing! I was ignored!!! Still, you get used to it after standing like a lemon for 20 mins. I've laterly been told that this 'being ignored' phenomenon is not actually as rare as one might assume during the clinical years. It's odd, my whole year has just gone from being the sole subject of care and concern of our lecturers to a bit of an annoyance to a bunch of nurses and doctors! Well that's a bit harsh, we don't annoy all the nurses and doctors, I think it's just a shock to realise you as a student are no longer priority number one, the patients are!
So after a bit more standing around I took the brave step of approaching some patients to have a chat and take a bit of a history. Taking a history of patient is basically when the doctor has a bit of a chat to the patient to find out about why they're in hospital, what diseases they have and some other stuff about their life. Some people say 60% of the diagnosis can be gleaned from the history! I'm skeptical........but maybe that's because i'm not very good at taking historys yet!