Tuesday 5 April 2011

Number 9: last 15 medical school

Sleepless nights with the fear of a new life outside the protection I was used to, then finding it was OK
Meeting Pat&Jan on my first day, they'd been at school together & are still friends
Self-catering, learning basic skills very fast, vowing to teach my children sooner
The smell of the exotic shop on the way from Clifton, incense, leather shoes, Indian clothes and a variety of jewellery which I still have.
Doughnuts on the hoof for for breakfast
Nasty pub meat-pies for lunch, never hot enough, but the nearest place.
The smell of formalin, and the surprise of how soft and warm a living body is
My first patient, Mr Cox who died after an amputation for complications of diabetes
Discovering caving, the other-world-appearance of the formations, then changing out of a coldwetmuddy home-made wetsuit in a blizzard on the roadside by Longwood
Delivering a baby, Mother's delight & the weird almost turquoise blue of the cord
The kindness of a few consultants, & some who took a delight in embarrassing students
Knowing a child had Henoch-Schoenlein purpura, I'd seen a friend's son with it
Another student who was "not at medical school to take blood" . They had to be done, so I got very good
One houseman's superhuman feat of knowing every patient's blood results from the last few days
Cider (I was in Bristol) some pubs wouldn't let girls have pints

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