I’m Sioned and I’ve recently begun my fifth (yikes) year of medicine at Edinburgh. I thought it would be fun to bring you all along on a week in my life (while enthusiasm is high) so that you can see what I get up to!
Sunday
A little lie in, a cup of coffee and a book, anything to keep the Sunday Scaries at bay. Tomorrow, I begin my paediatrics placement at St John’s Hospital, so there is plenty to do to make sure I’m organised for the week ahead!
I spend time prepping and cooking my meals for the week and doing some revision. I then hang out with my flatmates, make sure my bag is all packed, and head to bed ready for an early start!
Monday
5.50am. First day nerves wake me up before my alarm! I get myself ready and grab some breakfast and coffee (most important).
7am. My placement buddy comes round to my flat and we drive to Livingston. It’s a bit rainy but the tunes and chat are good.
7.30am. Arrived at the hospital! We head in, get changed into our scrubs, and go hunting for the children’s ward. Once there, we introduce ourselves to the first person we find and ask for directions to the doctors’ office!
8am. Morning handover. This is where the night team tell the day team about the patients on the ward, any jobs that need doing and other important updates. After this, we head on the ward round! This is where all the doctors and advanced nurse practitioners go around the ward and review every patient.
12 noon. Halfway! By this point, we have completed the ward round and morning jobs. I also got to examine babies for the first time – so cute! Paeds already feels very different from adult medicine, but I am loving it. Thankfully the ward is quite quiet so the team have been giving us a lot of teaching!
1pm. After lunch, I observe the doctors performing a few more reviews and baby checks. It is then eventually home time. I chill out with my flatmates and do some light studying for the rest of the evening
Tuesday
6am. I was slightly less enthusiastic about the early start this morning…
8am. After morning handover, the lead consultant tasks me with assessing an 11 week old baby. They have been brought in for assessment following a referral from NHS24. As this is about to be the first time, I see a baby on my own, I quickly refresh my knowledge of the important questions to ask the parents and the key aspects of the examination.
The baby cuddles in paeds really are game-changing! Once I’d completed this slightly nerve-wracking task, I reported all of my findings back to my senior and we go and review baby together. This is such a helpful thing to do, as it allows me to receive instant feedback on my examinations, management plans and differential diagnoses!
1pm. Luckily, it was quiet enough for the ward team to grab a coffee break together this morning, which was really lovely. We then all eat lunch together as we tune in for grand rounds – an NHS Lothian-wide meeting where different doctors present on a range of important topics.
6.45pm. I get home slightly later today, after staying to see some interesting reviews. I cook dinner and gossip away with the flatmates as usual, before heading to my desk to again do some revision and then chilling out for the evening.
Wednesday
Today was another pretty standard day on the wards. I joined ward round, practiced some history-taking and examinations, and cuddled lots of cute babies!
Once home, I headed for a gym session before having a nice early night.
Thursday
I hope you’re starting to get the gist by now! Ward round at 8am, except this morning I dashed off with the reg to RESUS for an interesting referral. I am really interested in emergency and critical care, so always jump at the opportunity to head down to A&E or ICU.
In the afternoon I attended a general paediatrics clinic which was also very insightful!
Once back in Edinburgh, I catch up with a friend over dinner before setting my 5.50am alarm for one last time this week!
Friday
We made it! The ward was pretty quiet today, and once the ward round and morning jobs had been done, I headed off and decided to get on with some studying. I spent the afternoon at the library before going to meet some old work-mates at the pub to celebrate it finally being the weekend.
I hope you enjoyed this little insight into a week in my life as a 5th year medic on paeds placement. Whilst placement timetable and studying are full-on, there is always time to fit in socialising too!
