Senior academic half day

Week 3
Academic Half day.
Junior rotation Academic Half Day was a task, a chore, certainly something to be endured, and rarely an effective learning experience. Junior Academic Half Day, or JIHAD as it is politically and acronymically incorrectly known, was broadly a waste of time. However, we have been warned, SENIOR Academic half day will be a source of great knowledge and attendance will be desirable, if mandatory. Vast and vital swathes of knowledge will be disseminated by entertaining and vibrant lecturers. Information which will allow us to sail through our finals, and become the gifted and intellectual doctors of the future. Well that’s what the PR machine would have us believe anyway.

Would it have killed them to have started on a high note? We all sat eagerly, brains sharpened by the countdown to finals, ready to receive the engaging homily.
The first lecture was delivered by a slightly rotund, shaggy looking microbiologist, and within 10mins of the lecture beginning, our shine, our zeal our desire had oxidised and dulled. We had been grossly miss-sold our new lecture sets. They were as dull and impenetrable as ever.

On a high note this week, my clinical partner has managed to acquire a new pen. One of the virtues of being a medical student is that there is a plethora of individuals and companies eager to thrust their brand encrusted stationary towards you. Some of these writing implements are superb; others would make a charcoal stick look reliable. Amongst the bland ballpoints occasionally a pen will be handed out with some bizarre twist or a design which endears them to our hearts. My clinical partner managed to acquire such a pen this week, a bone coloured pen, a bone coloured pen shaped as a femur, with a miniature femur affixed to the outside acting as a pen clip. This little piece of anatomically accurate moulded plastic has brought her significant levels of joy, and this is the nature of a medical student. The gloom, the oppression, the dour glare of your consultant and the cutting words of his registrar all mean that is it little things, such as a pen or a free pastry which can really brighten the day

But returning to our lecture... While I was attempting to prevent myself slipping into a lecture induced coma, my partner was so affronted by the lecture she was considering sacrificing her pen. A pen which had been her world, she was considering using in an act of Hari Kari. However she was unable to disassemble the plastic femur. Knowing the nature of a medical student’s life, the pen was smooth, rounded and sealed; with no edges of any sort could be found between its plastic condyles or tubercles which could be used to provide a blessed relief from the boredom.

Suddenly the noise level ramped up; the lecturer had stopped speaking it was over! But before we could leave, the stage was taken by insurance sales woman. A short young woman then proceeded to explain to us that while life might be rosy, pleasant and fun at the moment (obviously she had no concept of how little sleep and how much stress the average medical student is under) but that all of that could come to the end with one bought of illness or a severe accident (Come to an end, sure I’ve only just come back from elective, but the concept of fun is a rapidly fading memory) and as a result we desperately needed her companies medical insurance in the case of said accident. Certainly she provided a compelling argument, but at this stage of the game, I have all on deciding whether or not taking time out to do my washing is an effective use time, let alone signing up for medical insurance in the hopes of graduating.