{"id":614,"date":"2020-07-27T12:08:43","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/?p=614"},"modified":"2020-07-27T14:15:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T14:15:41","slug":"best-year-of-my-life-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/best-year-of-my-life-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Best year of my life, so far…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Aberystwyth<\/em><\/strong>. What can I say? This has been the best year\nof my life, never mind medical school. I\u2019ll do my best to put it in as few\nwords as possible!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all started when I accidently turned up to one of the lectures in 2nd<\/sup> year advertising the Rural Education Route (RER) project. I bumped into 2 of my close friends, Alice and Freya, and I was immediately determined to go to Aberystwyth. I have always loved travel and I thought, what better than going to the middle of Wales to explore? It also meant I could get out of the constant rush of Cardiff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alice, Freya and I came up to visit for a weekend in March in 2nd<\/sup>\nyear. We all fell in love with Aberystwyth for its scenery, calmness and\nsimplicity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We posted on Overheard at Aberystwyth to see if anyone had a house to\nrent for 3 people for the following year\u2026 two hours later we had sorted a\nhouse!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NOTE<\/em><\/strong>: you can get a proper adult house<\/em><\/strong> (detached, large garden, driveway, garage) for cheap! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The principle for the RER is that throughout the year, three days\nare spent in the GP<\/em><\/strong> surgery, one day is dedicated for teaching<\/em><\/strong>,\nand another for your SSC <\/em><\/strong>project. You will then spend two blocks\nof two weeks in hospital, being placed on A&E and surgery. I must admit, I\nwas very apprehensive that I would be missing out on the Hospital Front Door,\nOncology and Chronic Disease blocks that the rest of year 3 do. However, over\nthe first term, I realised that it really does NOT<\/em> <\/strong>matter at all.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being in GP teaches you general medicine and introduces you to every specialty. You learn how to manage chronic diseases in the community (which is where the majority of chronic disease is indeed managed), you will see many oncology patients, some presenting for the first time and others for palliation. Unlike other 3rd<\/sup> years, I regularly saw children and babies, encountered ophthalmology and dermatology which are specialties covered very quickly in 4th<\/sup> year. Medicine is largely self-study. As long as you have the ability to do a reasonable amount of self-study you can easily learn the correct information. Don\u2019t worry!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This year I have been in Tregaron<\/em><\/strong> Surgery which provides care\nfor a population of roughly 3700 patients.  The team comprised of 4 doctors (2 more\nexperienced and 2 new GPs), 3 nurses and of course a number of lovely admin\nstaff and receptionists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the team gets to know you and your abilities, they will chuck you\nin there. I initially spent the majority of my time shadowing the doctors, but\nsoon I was having my own clinics<\/em><\/strong> almost every day. It was quite\nscary at first but then you really ease into it. A doctor is always there\nif help Is needed<\/em><\/strong>! You really have the chance to develop your\ncommunication and examination skills and learn which KEY<\/em><\/strong> bits of\ninformation are relevant in a presentation (this is invaluable for ISCE\npractice<\/em><\/strong>). You learn how to document, refer and importantly support\npatients when there are uncertainties regarding their health. I have also had\nthe opportunity to go out with the District Nurses and frequently visit Tregaron\nHospital. All this just for one medical student<\/em><\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team there have been so supportive to me and allowed me to be very\nindependent. We will often go out for lunch together and even though placement\nhas finished I have been in regular contact with them over social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being in GP for such a long period really taught me how to tell if a patient is actually ill or if they can go home, which is a very important skill to develop! When in hospital, my GP knowledge allowed me to take things back to basics and use common sense rather than spout out complicated, rare medical conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A&E<\/em><\/strong> was so fantastic. You are really integrated into the team. They encourage you to see patients on your own, document and come up with a plan. Although we were only timetabled to be on A&E for 2 weeks, we can go in whenever we want \u2013 be it weekends or nights. The only other students here are a few 5th<\/sup> years who are ward-based rather than A&E. Therefore, the 7 of us were free to use the department as frequently as we liked without stepping on anybody\u2019s toes! It is really one-to-one education!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clinical skills wise, I had completed almost all clinical skills\nin the first term<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have done hundreds of bloods and cannulas<\/em><\/strong> and feel very\ncompetent in these skills going forwards (which is what you do so much of as an\nF1)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The staff in the hospital are so lovely \u2013 they do not treat you like they are your superiors, but just any other person. We have been on nights out, gone to pubs, gone out for meals, gone around to each other\u2019s houses to eat pizza and watch films, played badminton! I would call a number of them close friends<\/em><\/strong>. I even met my now fianc\u00e9e <\/em><\/strong>on A&E \u2013 she\u2019s one of the F1s. Mad hey!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So many people say to me \u201cwhat do you even do in Aberystwyth, it\u2019s in the middle of nowhere.\u201d Well if they made the effort to visit Aberystwyth, they\u2019d see that there is SO <\/em><\/strong>much to do! Firstly, the atmosphere is so friendly, everyone knows everyone and will always say hello. The scenery<\/em><\/strong> is beautiful \u2013 there are countless routes to go walking or biking. If you enjoy outdoor activities<\/em><\/strong> it is the place to be! Aberystwyth also has the greatest number of pubs per square mile<\/em><\/strong> in the UK \u2013 try getting around them all whilst you\u2019re here (good luck lol). My favourite is Bottle and Barrel<\/em><\/strong>, please visit this beer bar if you are ever in the area! Also, you can see dolphins in the sea\u2026  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Personally, I enjoy running. I have run along the coastal path (absolute\nkiller), up nearby mountains and much more. Also, Park Run<\/em><\/strong> is\nwhere it\u2019s at – don\u2019t be surprised when you bump into half the hospital there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also joined Aberystwyth Philomusica<\/em><\/strong> which is an\norchestra. It\u2019s a good standard and nice in the fact it is open to the general\npublic and not just university students. If you like, you can also join the university\nsocieties<\/em><\/strong>. We have full access to the university facilities including\nthe gym and library which are very good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Covid-19 pandemic, 6 of us have chosen to stay in\nAberystwyth. We have been trained as Healthcare Assistants<\/em><\/strong> and\nall work on A&E. This gives us the opportunity to see the nursing side of\nmedicine, continue to practice our clinical skills, get a little bit of money,\nand become qualified to do HCA work in the future when back in Cardiff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Sue Fish<\/em><\/strong> is our clinical supervisor here. She is so supportive and will go out her way to help you in any situation. I would like to say a massive thank you to her, and also to the GPs at my surgery \u2013 Dr Langley, Dr Palmer, Dr Edwards and Dr James<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please consider coming to study in Aberystwyth. If you put yourself out there and ask questions, I\u2019m sure you will have the time of your life.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Callum<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aberystwyth. What can I say? This has been the best year of my life, never mind medical school. I\u2019ll do my best to put it in as few words as […]","protected":false},"author":1760,"featured_media":615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1760"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":625,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions\/625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}