Gastroenterology medicine

I'm all done with surgery for my 4th year! Won't be going back to it for a while now as my next 2 five week attachments are in medicine and my special study module respectively.

My medicine attachment is in gastroenterology. Basically peoples gastrointestinal tracts. Loads of people with diarrhoea, things like Crohns disease, ulcerative colitis etc. It's quite nice to be with medics again rather than surgeons. I love surgeons, but they can be a bit brutal and efficient with the patients. Medics on the other hand love to waft around the hospital from ward to ward taking their time. Surgeons think medics mince around doing very little, medics think surgeons burst into patients cubicles in a whirlwind and are gone before the patient can work out what the hell is going on.

Ok massive stereotypes perhaps, and many medics and surgeons are nothing like what I said above. But there are a few!

After my medicine attachment is over Ihave the dubious fun of exams! Essentially end of 4th year exams, they will be on medicine and surgery and comprise a 1 hour written multiple choice exam, and a long long long practical exam where I have to do things like take blood, do abdominal examinations and demonstrate my 'communication skills'. Fun!

After my little tests, and my easter hols, I get to do my special study module. Becoming more and more common in all medical schools, the special study module is a time that you can choose what you would like to spend more time on for 5 weeks. So you can choose an area you're weak at, something your interested in, or something very dossy (like clinical hypnosis) if you just want a holiday for 5 weeks. I went for a clinical haematology option about acute leukaemia. I'm not especially interested in leukaemia, but I didn't feel like I knew enough about it, and it sounded more interesting that 'a history of anatomy' or 'forensic osteology (bones)' which were some of the other choices. And, happily, the module is based in Cambridge, which is very good for me. The last thing I want is to be dashing around the villages of east anglia in May, when I could be punting on the river Cam instead eating strawberries and sipping champagne. Or, as is more likely in this country, running from the rain.

My time in Bedford is coming to an end. I've been here for almost 10 weeks now on attachment (5 weeks of medicine, and 5 weeks of surgery). At first it was a bit of a pain not being in Cambridge where my nice warm bed and other modern conveniences are - but after a while Bedford does sort of grow on you (not like a fungus as someone remarked to me earlier).

I'm finishing off my vascular surgery attachment this week. I've quite enjoyed it so far, although as i've said earlier it's about the most minging thing i've ever seen. People literally have huge ulcers centimetres deep on their legs filled with pus and other oozing stuff! But it's really satisfying being able to treat them at the end of the day, and slowly but surely you can see that even these quite painful and miserable looking ulcers can end up healing (even if you do it by chucking a tea bag of maggots into the wound!).

The other side of vascular surgery is a bit more acute and sudden. An aneurysm is when an artery gets really dilated. You can feel them pulsating, and they can rupture causing big problems for the patients (perhaps not quite akin to something out of the Alien films. but close enough). If somones aneurysm bursts sometimes you have to rush them to the operating theatre straight away. That kind of excitement and rapid fixing of problems really appeals to me. Plus I bet you feel pretty cool as the surgeon doing all the chopping - saving someones life in real time, rather than over the course of a long period of time!

Anyway, next week I shall be back in Cambridge at Addenbrooke's ready for a week of lectures before I start my next attachment!