Exams and form filling

The final week of placement went fairly uneventfully, save for parliament being dissolved and the country being plunged into political turmoil.  The sentimental part of me will probably want to remember Friday as my last day of placement simply because that is what it was, but in reality having 3 hours of sleep and turning up to a hepatitis clinic before 9am and having to look like I knew who is was, where I was and what I was doing there, makes the day a little more memorable.  Fascinating election.

Our first exam is on Wednesday, known in the trade as an OSCE.  It involves running from room to room as indicated by a bell (school? fire? knell?) and performing tasks in a strict 7 minutes.  These tasks range from explaining to a simulated patient/relative that you have inadvertently poisoned them/their mother and you are very sorry but that it’s all going to be ok because lots of forms are being filled in about it, to explaining to a plastic penis that it is in acute retention and that you need to catheterise it.  And then catheterising it.  I should probably explain that the School hasn’t spent five years training us with the expectation that once released onto the wards, we are going to begin poisoning people, but they do like to see how we react to different (potential) scenarios.

Aside from revision, I’ve been working my way through the seemingly infinite supply of paperwork that has been sent to me by my prospective employers.  I had no idea that starting work required so many forms to be filled in!