A
day in the life of a Medical Student
Rona
Francisco
University of Sydney
April
12th is not a typical day for me as it falls in the middle
of my university Easter break. I am currently in my second
year of medical school at the University
of Sydney Graduate Medical Program. Usually on Wednesdays,
I am at university attending 2 hours of lectures followed
by a 1.5-hour tutorial pertaining to our case of the week.
Today, I am meeting another medical student at Westmead Clinical
School to review some clinical skills for our upcoming exam.
Here is a run-down of my 2006 World-Wide Day in Science:
8:30am – Wake up, have breakfast and get ready for the day.
(8:30am is a luxuriously late start
for me as I am usually up by 6:30am during the semester
to get ready for my long commute into the city). Today, I
am meeting Alexis, a fellow medical student, at 10am to do
some study. I briefly read my clinical notes before I leave
my house.
9:30am – I jump into my car and drive to Westmead Hospital.
9:50am – I arrive at Westmead Clinical School and make myself
a cup of coffee in the Student Common Room. I read my Clinical
Examination textbook by Tally and O’Connor while I wait for
Alexis to arrive.
10:00am – Alexis turns up, and we relocate to a tutorial room.
We begin studying our clinical work from the beginning of
2005. Our OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination)
is in 3 weeks, and we can be tested
on anything we have done
for the past 1.5 years; Musculoskeletal
system, Respiratory system, Haematology, Cardiology and Neurology.
We practice our history-taking skills and physical examination
skills on each other by taking turns at being
the doctor and patient.
For instance, Alexis role-plays as an asthmatic patient while
I obtain an accurate medical history of her condition. I then
explain to her how to use puffers, spacers, peak-flow metres
and metered-dose inhalers.
Then we swap over, and this time I role-play as a patient
with an injured knee while Alexis performs a knee-joint and
lower limb motor examination. We continue practicing
various clinical skills in this manner until
we feel comfortable doing the examination on a real patient
or in the OSCE.
1:00pm – Lunch.
1:40pm – We return to the tutorial room and continue practicing
our examination skills. These are some of the techniques we
practiced:
• Eye examination (Fundoscopy/Ophthalmoscopy)
• Ear examination (Otoscopy)
• Blood Pressure measurement
• Intubation and CPR on resuscitation dummies
• Venepuncture (taking blood) and cannulation
This is a photo of me in the Clinical School practicing
my Venepuncture technique on a plastic arm.
The veins of the arm contain a red-dye solution, which leaks
into the blood tube when the vein is pierced. This is a great
way of learning how to find the veins in the arm and getting
a feel for the correct angle and depth when inserting a needle
into a patient’s arm to collect blood for laboratory testing.
4:30pm-9:15pm: The rest of the afternoon is spent doing social
activities. I spend some time with my b/f David and
watch TV with his family. David has some new songs on his
computer and I download them onto my iPod.
At about 6pm I have dinner. I watch the new Sale of the
Century with my Dad and catch up with my Mum about her
day. My mother is an Obstetrician/Gynaecologist-turned-General
Practitioner, and it is always interesting hearing
about her day.
At 7:30pm, I do my 1-hour Pilates exercise routine. I have
several Pilates DVDs at home so that I can exercise at any
time that suits me. At 9pm, I check my email.
9:15pm I type up today’s clinical notes onto my laptop. I
continue to study until about 10:30pm, and I end the day thinking
that no matter how many hours of study I fit into one day,
as a medical student there is always
more study to do!
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