Hospital placement. The experience that the majority of prospective medical students will tell you they are looking forward to the most. It was certainly the case for me. In fact, one of the reasons why I applied to Imperial was because, unlike many medical schools, it gives us the opportunity to go on hospital placement during the early years of our degree. In addition, alongside a fascination for science, what equally compelled me to study medicine was the opportunity to interact with patients. Hence, you can imagine my excitement when I found out the last two weeks of this term had been set aside for our first hospital placement.
In actual fact, this should have been our second hospital placement. Our first placement had been scheduled for the summer term of first year but had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even this placement saw changes. Rather than being compulsory, the Faculty decided this placement would be ‘opt in/out’ because if we tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of the attachment we would not be able to go home for the holidays. I had been so eagerly anticipating hospital placements that, for me, this decision was a no brainer. As what must have been a pleasant surprise to Faculty, the majority of my year also opted in to undertake this placement.
The next stage of the process was finding out which hospital and department we had been assigned to. My allocation was to Urology at Charing Cross Hospital (a stroke of luck given that I only live a 5 minutes’ walk away!)
Placement days usually begin with an early start; on most days I had to arrive by 8:00am. However, despite living so close to the hospital, I was thoroughly afraid that I would end up getting lost in a hospital as big as Charing Cross so I usually ended up setting off with at least 20 minutes to spare. As I mentioned, my placement was based in Urology which looks at the urinary system (i.e. the kidneys, bladder and the tubes connecting them and the outside world). Urology is a surgical speciality so I got to spend a lot of time in operating theatres. Some of the surgeries I saw included various methods of stone removal, a robot assisted prostate removal and gender reassignment surgery (with Charing Cross being one of only 3 hospitals in the UK to perform this particular surgery). The intricacy and focus required during surgery has always fascinated me, so I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in theatres.
Most mornings began with a ward round in which the whole team (comprising a Consultant, various junior doctors and, in this case, us medical students) visits all of the urological patients admitted on the hospital wards to check in on their progress and update them on the plan going forwards. After ward rounds, we would always get to go back and speak to some of the patients we had seen which was lovely from a personal perspective but also incredibly useful medically to gain a deeper insight into the symptoms and risk factors that they had which led to their admission to hospital.
Spread throughout the placement we also had various practical clinical skills sessions, tutorials and clinics to observe. The doctors and allied healthcare staff who we spent time with were also excellent teachers and, whenever they got the chance, would talk us through the patient cases we saw and the medicine underpinning them. One of my biggest concerns for this placement was that I would feel as though I’m getting in the way and don’t really have a purpose. However, the staff really went out of their way to turn this into a valuable teaching experience which made me feel as though I did have a role on this placement- namely to learn.
This links well to another concern I had regarding this placement which was not having enough medical knowledge. It was valid- there were many instances when I was asked a question that I did not know the answer to. However, the staff always turned this into a learning opportunity rather than making me feel inadequate. Of course, I didn’t know everything about Urology. There was no expectation for me to. Over the course of the placement I became more comfortable with not knowing all the answers, and instead asking more questions. There will come a time after which you will spend the rest of your life as an expert, but you only get to be a medical student once.
I am extremely glad that I opted in for this hospital placement. It is true when they say you learn far more from the wards than you do in a lecture theatre. Seeing real life patient examples for myself makes remembering typical facts and features of medical conditions and treatments much easier to remember and I know this placement will stick with me for the rest of my medical journey.
