Whirlwind tour of clinical presentations

The last two days have been pretty packed with lectures and case work. We have skipped through vomiting, diarrhoea, weight loss, epistaxis, pale mucous membranes, jaundice, haematuria, coughing and dyspnoea, weakness-syncope-seizures and last, but not least, PU/PD. This whirlwind tour has been designed to get us thinking again after the Christmas break and aims to get us to consider possible clinical presentations and how we can use the clues from a history, presentation and clinical exam to work logically through cases to achieve a diagnosis. The concept is simple and the feedback from clinicians teaching current final years is that these students are measurably better at clinical problem solving. There is only one problem: I am absolutely terrible at it! Incidentally, the logical approach to clinical problem solving also runs as a CPD course (http://cpd.rvc.ac.uk) and I would recommend it very highly.

Does anyone ever look forward to stats?

Christmas day stroll along the front with my family.

Happy New year! I am sorry that I left things hanging a little two weeks ago. Now I have returned from deepest, darkest France and bonny Hastings I can happily report that I am not dead, I did pass and for the time being a state of normality has resumed. It has been a lovely two weeks without the constant pressure of having to revise, but it did take a few days for my brain to catch on and relax. I'm back on campus now doing some work before term starts again next week. Despite my best efforts I have spent more money than I should have and I need to try and undo the damage!

We start rotations proper on the 13th of February, but we have a few weeks of clinical problem solving and some lectures on how to go about our research projects with something resembling professionalism. I think it may be a little dull, but at least it's a nice gentle introduction. I am not looking forwards to stats. Does anyone ever look forward to stats?

Until next time.