Summer term begins and I don't feel like someone who is close to being qualified! In many ways I'm not, with all the hoop jumping that is still left to be done. Seriously, I just don't feel good enough to be unleashed on an unsuspecting clientele. Having said that, it's not just me - I wouldn't want to employ the services of many of my colleagues either! I think I am suffering from a lifetime of seeing experienced practitioners at the top of their game. I suppose it is unrealistic to compare our abilities with what I am used to, but I am disappointed by this really.
Putting this blog together and being able to look back at it, has shown me how much work I have actually done. Bad CCA grades and a general feeling of doom, leave me feeling quite useless and as if I know nothing. At lease I can see that I tried hard! The dissertation was a real distraction though and although I had hoped to enjoy it and learn some techniques from doing it, I found this was simply not the case.
We have had some advice for our next OSPE, some of which was about avoiding the use of old favourite techniques. This is exactly the opposite of the advice I received after the mock OSPE. I am addressing this anyway and hope to widen the variety of techniques I use regularly.
My longest standing patient returned this week, following an operation to remove a cancerous tumour on his kidney. His scar was healing nicely but it seemed huge considering they had only taken part of the kidney away. The cancer was caught so early that there is no need for him to have radiotherapy or chemotherapy. He has been relaxing in the sun and looked incredibly well. The scar shocked me in some way. It was the only sign of the physical and mental trauma he had been through. I came away selfishly feeling my own mortality and thinking about how we are not safe in our own bodies. I am deeply interested it nutritional and other alternative approaches to preventing and treating cancer and I was also reminded that I want to find out more about working in palliative care. I felt really out of sorts for the rest of the day...
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