Here’s hoping it’s not another 18 month gap before blogging again, but since I’ve finally given up and joined Twitter (I know, it’s a sad comment on life in 140 characters or less) then I thought I might give this another shot.

If anyone’s out there still, then why? Don’t you have anything better to do? Ooh, you could follow me on Twitter, I have no friends so far. http://twitter.com/doc_placebo if you feel so inclined.

DP

The problem based learning is still problematic and medical school is still the nightmare it always was, so why continue?

Because I’m a fool who believes it will all be different when I qualify. Simplistic isn’t it!

Sure, we’re all entitled to our own opinions, and rightly so that we should share them. But christ almighty, keep them constructive.

Reverting to poo slinging and swearing at people isn’t very mature is it? Sometimes it would just be nice to distance myself from arguments like this. Hence why I’ve refrained from commenting on the original post.

Rest assured, I am still here, just very very busy.

But fear not, Dr Placebo is back, trying to help you out with little or no evidence base

…I worried that I was taking advantage of a patient.

Not in a seedy way or anything illegal you understand…. I just felt that I was taking advantage of a patient’s illness to gain personal clinical experience.

Am I right to feel guilty? Is this a common experience, or is this a sign of weakness?

I would like to add a big thankyou to Dr Crippen for linking to me last week on the Britmeds – it was indeed an honour!

I promise I intend to return fully this week after I start back on placement feeling better!

Is this just a medical student thing, as everyone else seems to know exactly where they need to be and what they need to be doing, while even if a medical student puts their back to a wall, someone will want something from behind them.

Please tell me this isn’t just me?

I seem to have developed this fancy footwork, which I shall name the Med Student Shuffle. Med Student Shuffle involves rapidly changing location/position any time a member of any medical/surgical team walks in your direction, just in case you’re in their way.

If only this were a suitable skill for MTAS – I’d be made!

The actual exam was rather funny in hindsight. Someone in my year getting knocked into by another student leaving a curtained area without looking, and the first student swearing rather loudly as the Dean appeared to invite him into his next station. Bonus marks for that one!

I managed to snap a latex glove putting it on for the station, and ended up with the giggles. This may have limited my time in the station but I still managed to finish.

OSCEs are the scariest thing I’ve done, yet oddly the most enjoyable. It’s more how you perform as a person than brain power, and it’s a relaxing sort of exam compared to a written paper.

It seems to not only be my medical school that has the brown-nosing student problem, and another blogging medic has also identified it.

Medicine as a University course breeds competitiveness into people. I’m wondering if that’s necessarily a good thing.

Do we really desire doctors who are prepared to be underhand and sneaky to get what they want? And is this a trend that should be encouraged in medical school….

My school is terrible for it; you hear wonderful rumours of students and the air ambulances for example. Something I would give a leg for (although it may somewhat limit my career plans!).  I do sometimes wonder how these contacts and networks come across, and whether medical school is still as ‘old boy’s network’ as it always used to be?

I wonder if there’s an old girl’s network too…