Confidence boost

I had a wonderful morning at the GP surgery today! I got to see a whole host of interesting patients, including some pregnant ladies (whose urine I was allowed to dipstick), and people with diabetes, migraine, stress related problems, anaemia, and lots more. I only was asked to leave the room twice, and I could understand why for both times.

I really got an understanding of how difficult the work of a GP was. The amount of ground you have to cover in a short 10 minute appointment is incredible, and in addition to being there to look after the medical well being of the patient, you're looking after their mental and emotional health, and acting as a confidant and counsellor and social worker. I was drained after a morning there, and I wasn't even doing the work (and my GP still had an afternoon and evening surgery to run).

It was a fantastic experience, but I was overawed by what GPs had to do, and I already felt that my clinical skills weren't up to the task, so I made some comment to the GP that I felt that I didn't have a future in clinical medicine and certainly not as a GP, having seen how difficult it was, especially with such a short consultation time. She passed on one of the nicest compliments that I've received since I've got here.

The first week that we were sitting in on the GP surgery it was to observe hearing impaired patients. We were lucky enough to see two very different hearing impaired patients, different both in terms of how they had developed deafness and how they were managing with it. As I was really nervous, I thought I had made an appalling impression on both the patients and the GP. However, the GP passed on a message from the first hearing impaired patient that she felt that I had the best empathy and listening skills out of the entire group and felt that I would make an excellent doctor because I developed a good rapport. This was a huge confidence boost, and I was flattered that this had come from a patient without prompting. I left the surgery feeling fired up, and feeling that I could achieve.

That was the good part of the day. I'm afraid to report that I haven't managed to do much this afternoon, as I tried to take a one hour nap which I slept through the alarm for, and woke up 3 hours later. It might be a long night ahead trying to learn about the liver...

AcidCat