GP-land

These few weeks in GP has been an eventful one, for sure. Least of all has been my birth day - thanks to all who turned up for dinner, and for the 3 who gamely came where I had never trod before and helped find the atmospheric jazz club (in a church crypt!) and transformed the outing into something memorable (I would actually say it was personally heady, but that was probably from the wine the girls made me down!). Special props to Ruth - muacks!

GP itself has been a multi-faceted challenge. Running my own patient lists means I'm in command, which paradoxically is and isn't where I want to be right now. It's scary when you have to stick out on a limb with your diagnosis, when half the time (maybe even 3/4 of the time) I'm not sure what it is! That only makes it twice as heartening when the GP strides in and confirms my educated guess, or sends the patient away and turns to me and says, "I have no clue as to what is happening."

Handling patients has been pretty stable, with some challenges on the way. I've managed to stay within the 20 minute time slot for student consultation most of the time. I've handled a boisterous 4-member family with a screaming 1-year-old and an anxious mother, while not optimally, still quite satisfactorily, bearing in mind I had only expected 1 cute baby to deal with, not 3 patients urged on by the mother's anxiety.

I've made a woman cry, by asking her how she was. And I sat there with no words to offer, and only admiration in my eyes, as she regally put herself together again. She had had a mastectomy and reconstruction within weeks of diagnosis, and was waiting to begin her course of chemotherapy. My thought go out to all the brave women and their families out there, especially this dear woman, and those close to my heart.

I've sent a foetus to its death. A couple with "an accident" came to find more information, and had thought about and discarded all other possibilities already. How, as a mere student, would I have convinced them otherwise? I tried anyway, but in the end the GP came in to give them what they wanted. From the shock of hearing what she wanted, to sending them out of the door with the appointment for the abortion clinic, that was one of the easiest and probably the hardest consultation.

I've injected more people than I care to count, first in the flu injection clinic, and then in the children's immunisation clinics. I liked every minute of it though, especially seeing how the children reacted to the jabs - the very clueless, the whiners, the yell-ers, etc. Very fun! ;)

I've also cycled about 6 miles every day, in all kinds of weather - mostly rainy/cloudy, as per UK standards; did my first job application and gotten very tired of word limits and constantly cutting words and rephrasing sentences (good riddance to that!); sat on the most humongous swings hung from towering trees, listening to the sound of the forest (and the occasional passing car); and eaten my first toffee apple, among other things.

This fifth year, from the last two attachments, if surely going to be a steep learning curve, and I've got miles to go, even though I've learnt so much already! But it's so enjoyable - perhaps that's half the battle won already.