Jul/090
If you are a medical student in the UK..
If you are a medical student in the UK you might be interested in the Scalpel Undergraduate Surgical Conference which is to be hosted in Manchester on 7th November 2009.
All the details are on their website at http://www.scalpelmanchester.co.uk
Jul/090
Where to begin?!
Summer term flew by, meaning tremendous exam stress (did I mention we medics are slightly competitive?) and many late nights of revision! Exams were based around our neuroscience/anatomy teaching and the endocrine and reproductive system - some were horrible as expected and others came as a huge relief to those of us who were already scrapping our summer plans in fear of resits! Having spent six weeks loathing neuroanatomy I was shocked to learn that I had in fact excelled in the exam and come out in the top 5% of my year (there is probably a lesson to be learned in that somewhere!).
Exams aside however, I am already finding myself running out of things to do until I return to university at the end of September. I'm really looking forwards to going back and beginning my intercalation in Cancer Biology which I realise is more than a little bit geeky! At the same time I realise that I have a lot of work to do to catch up with everyone else who has been studying the degree for two years already! I'm glad I made the decision to take the year out of medicine to study for it, having come straight from school at eighteen without a gap year I feel as though I'm accelerating towards adulthood and indeed 'doctor'hood without taking any kind of break to gain more life experience.
Whilst I'm sat taking in the grim Manchester weather many of my medic friends are off globetrotting. I've got a family holiday to look forwards to alongside some work on a summer camp later in August. No doubt September and my 21st will be here before I know it!
I always have lots of plans for designing this website & yet never get around to doing anything about them. Hopefully I'll have a surge of creativity and do something about it in the next few weeks, watch this space!
Apr/091
Terrorism..
How is it right that the actions of the minority leave the rest of us fearful of our own safety in our own homes and our own towns?
I have to admit that despite the recent arrests in the North-West I hadn't really considered myself or my friends or family to be at any significant risk of falling prey to acts of terrorism. However this morning I read a newspaper article that made me reconsider and really brought the events of the last few days home.
The fact is, that one of the areas that was photographed by the alleged terrorism suspects is yards from where I often work. If a bomb had been planted in that area the shop would almost certainly have been blown up killing everybody inside.
I'm extremely thankful that the plot was uncovered, and it didn't come as a complete surprise. Myself and my family have been speculating for the last few weeks that a huge plot was about to be uncovered and had even narrowed the area down to the Trafford Centre or Manchester city centre. This was due to the emergence of posters and television adverts warning us to report any suspicious people photographing shopping centres.
Now that I'm over the initial shock however, I find myself frustrated with the position that we are in. I feel completely powerless to protect myself or the people that I love from the ignorant acts of the minority and that scares me.
I feel proud of the city that I live in and have a huge respect for the way that it has recovered from the IRA bomb. What I want, and feel that I have a right to claim is the right to enjoy it without fear or intimidation.
Feb/090
Gotta love brains..
..or not.
We've reached that stage in second year medicine where the budding surgeons can hardly contain their excitement.. but many more of us are shaking in our boots because we've just hit the neuroscience part of our course.
If you thought the brain was just a blobby, jelly like thing - think again.. there are names for all the pokey spaces, wiggly lines and cells that make up a brain.. names that I don't think I'll ever get my head around. Its hard to fathom how one bit of grey brain has a completely different job to the grey bit of brain next to it. Sadly this is exactly what the next six weeks of my life will be spent finding out!
We are two days in. I turned up with some enthusiasm - 'its the brain right? There must be lots of interesting things to learn about that'. I can feel that same enthusiasm slipping away rather quickly.. hopefully Amazon will be my friend and when my two shiny new neuroscience textbooks arrive my excitement will be 'rekindled'...
I can live in hope!
Jenn

