Le meilleur des choix
oh dear readers, avid review fans. I hope you know how i suffer as a chart a course for you through the rocky territory of trashy novel translations.
In all fairness, from that title i should have known it would be terrible but i'd been seduced by "medecin et don juan" and it was a double copy.
I really can barely be bothered to type the words though, it wasn't so bad its good (which is what i always expect and hope for), it wasn't so bad its hilarious (which is usually what i get), its only move away from mediocrity was in its MASSIVE dullness.
However duty is duty so here is the plot in a nutshell: emotionally traumatised pr/management girl meets emotionally traumatised/rough round the edges ER doctor (see geoff - you've chosen an appropriately sexy speciality). They have sex, she gets pregnant, they get married and have babies. A snooze-fest from start to finish.
It saddens me to finish off my literature reviews with a whimper rather than a derisorily hilarious bang but c'est la vie.
In other news a mere 2 days of hospital, 3 days of nantes life in total and one long day of travel stands between me and home. And the same for marie except with a long day of hanging round and a much shorter journey.
I cannot god damn wait, skills are signed off, u-cex's are done and i'm doctor ready. But mostly i'm ready to just not be here.
We went for a day trip to cholet to see my grandma on sunday. As here town-twinning friend she was staying with said "i don't know why you've come here, its ugly and there's nothing to see" but really we quite enjoyed the not-being-in-nantes-ness of it all. So 2 more days of hospital and then on friday once packed up and rooms inspected we are taking one last trip round town on the "petit train" and then voila, fini, au revoir!
hope you've enjoyed
alex
Tuesday 18 May 2010
Thursday 13 May 2010
Update!
Just a little update on the aftermath of the Apero Géant I talked about last night...
10,000 people turned up
93 people needed on-site medical attention
57 people were hospitalised
1 person died
40 people were arrested for drink driving
30 people were arrested for other reasons
It started at 7pm and the police didn't start moving people on till 4.30 in the morning. What an insane idea. We saw a bit of news footage of it on TV today and literally it was just LOADS of people sat around on the floor in the cold drinking supermarket own brand spirits straight from the bottle. Really did not look like much fun and to be honest, a little bit trampy. Apparently it's a country-wide thing the do to celebrate this particular bank holiday but last night Nantes broke the record for the most people ever attending (joint with Montpellier). Weird weird.
Marie
xxx
10,000 people turned up
93 people needed on-site medical attention
57 people were hospitalised
1 person died
40 people were arrested for drink driving
30 people were arrested for other reasons
It started at 7pm and the police didn't start moving people on till 4.30 in the morning. What an insane idea. We saw a bit of news footage of it on TV today and literally it was just LOADS of people sat around on the floor in the cold drinking supermarket own brand spirits straight from the bottle. Really did not look like much fun and to be honest, a little bit trampy. Apparently it's a country-wide thing the do to celebrate this particular bank holiday but last night Nantes broke the record for the most people ever attending (joint with Montpellier). Weird weird.
Marie
xxx
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Nearly there!
So, I've been a bit lazy with the blog recently. I think fatigue is setting in, the end is in sight (10 more sleeps!) and I'm getting really impatient just to be back in the UK again. However I thought it only right to keep our loyal blog followers happy with a bit of an update on how I've been getting on in my current placement in Rheumatology.
To be honest, it's been really really difficult to get into the swing of things on this placement and that's not necessarily the Rheumatology department's fault. Firstly, as I mentioned above it's the final stage and in my head I've almost finished already. Secondly, it's only a three week attachment whereas all the others have been for four weeks. When you take into account that the French go bank holiday CRAZY in May, one of which is on a Thursday so the majority of people take the Friday after off work for a long weekend, and we basically have to take the last day off to sort out moving out of halls and leaving Nantes, this means the placement is potentially only 11 days long. Not long at all to really get a feel of a speciality and definitely not long to rush around trying to get any forms signed that you may or may not have left until the last minute. The final obstacle I've encountered is that all the students in the department have exams or re-sits coming up very soon which means they aren't around that much. In all my other placements I've shadowed the students for a week or so to get used to the language and how to examine the patients in French before being confident enough to work on my own. This means I've really missed having other students around to show me the ropes as the internes are often a bit busy to explain things.
Having said all that, I think if I'd done this placement earlier on it would have been a really good one. Rheumatology in France is a much bigger deal than in the UK. On my first day the chef de service said to me that in the UK we have maybe 600-700 consultant rheumatologists, compared to 2500 in France! I can't vouch for the accuracy of those figures but it certainly covers a much wider area of medicine here, dealing with many patients I think would be seen by orthopaedics at home. I've seen lots of joint injections, joint ultrasounds, DEXA scanning, and it's been good practice for interpreting X-rays.
Something else that's been occupying my brain instead of rheumatology this past week has been the election, and I had an interesting conversation with another student about it today. I mentioned that I'd been keenly following all the activities at home from Nantes and she laughed and said something about how it was typically English and we have a reputation for being very engaged and active in politics. This kind of surprised me as it wasn't something I'd ever been aware of before and I thought we usually have quite large numbers of people who don't vote? Then the student asked if I had voted and when I said yes she laughed again and said that she has never voted and doesn't really know anybody who does. It's interesting, I haven't really learned a single thing about French politics since I've been here but apparently the low numbers of voters is a real problem and (as Alex pointed out to me) isn't it strange that they would be so keen on striking over everything and anything yet not care enough to vote in their elections?
Tomorrow is one of the bank holidays I mentioned earlier (for the Ascension) and to celebrate there's a big gathering in Place Royale in town. The Facebook event was called 'Apéro Géant' and basically it just involves everybody congregating in the main square with alcohol - no entertainment arranged, no real rhyme or reason to it, just 'we've all got the day off tomorrow so let's get drunk in the street'. Last time I checked it had around 19,500 (!!!!) confirmed guests and thousands more maybes so we've decided to give it a wide berth, although we will be heading into town tomorrow morning to see what kind of havoc has been wreaked on the place!
Marie
xxx
To be honest, it's been really really difficult to get into the swing of things on this placement and that's not necessarily the Rheumatology department's fault. Firstly, as I mentioned above it's the final stage and in my head I've almost finished already. Secondly, it's only a three week attachment whereas all the others have been for four weeks. When you take into account that the French go bank holiday CRAZY in May, one of which is on a Thursday so the majority of people take the Friday after off work for a long weekend, and we basically have to take the last day off to sort out moving out of halls and leaving Nantes, this means the placement is potentially only 11 days long. Not long at all to really get a feel of a speciality and definitely not long to rush around trying to get any forms signed that you may or may not have left until the last minute. The final obstacle I've encountered is that all the students in the department have exams or re-sits coming up very soon which means they aren't around that much. In all my other placements I've shadowed the students for a week or so to get used to the language and how to examine the patients in French before being confident enough to work on my own. This means I've really missed having other students around to show me the ropes as the internes are often a bit busy to explain things.
Having said all that, I think if I'd done this placement earlier on it would have been a really good one. Rheumatology in France is a much bigger deal than in the UK. On my first day the chef de service said to me that in the UK we have maybe 600-700 consultant rheumatologists, compared to 2500 in France! I can't vouch for the accuracy of those figures but it certainly covers a much wider area of medicine here, dealing with many patients I think would be seen by orthopaedics at home. I've seen lots of joint injections, joint ultrasounds, DEXA scanning, and it's been good practice for interpreting X-rays.
Something else that's been occupying my brain instead of rheumatology this past week has been the election, and I had an interesting conversation with another student about it today. I mentioned that I'd been keenly following all the activities at home from Nantes and she laughed and said something about how it was typically English and we have a reputation for being very engaged and active in politics. This kind of surprised me as it wasn't something I'd ever been aware of before and I thought we usually have quite large numbers of people who don't vote? Then the student asked if I had voted and when I said yes she laughed again and said that she has never voted and doesn't really know anybody who does. It's interesting, I haven't really learned a single thing about French politics since I've been here but apparently the low numbers of voters is a real problem and (as Alex pointed out to me) isn't it strange that they would be so keen on striking over everything and anything yet not care enough to vote in their elections?
Tomorrow is one of the bank holidays I mentioned earlier (for the Ascension) and to celebrate there's a big gathering in Place Royale in town. The Facebook event was called 'Apéro Géant' and basically it just involves everybody congregating in the main square with alcohol - no entertainment arranged, no real rhyme or reason to it, just 'we've all got the day off tomorrow so let's get drunk in the street'. Last time I checked it had around 19,500 (!!!!) confirmed guests and thousands more maybes so we've decided to give it a wide berth, although we will be heading into town tomorrow morning to see what kind of havoc has been wreaked on the place!
Marie
xxx
Thursday 6 May 2010
Literature review part ?? (how many of these things have i read now) + lady bits en francais
well friends,
after a few weeks of reading some proper books i felt i couldn't leave you any longer without another review of some fantastic french literature.
This week i put myself through the amusingly titled "medecin et don juan" (rhyming, nice) which translates basically as "doctor and man-whore" (much better than the actual english title of "the play-boy doctors surprise proposal")
Our heroine is an irish ginge obstetrician called Caitlin and our hero is the dazzlingly be-muscled Andrew - a paediatrician. Already we are learning - fellow medics, pick your careers wisely - babies = sexy, old people = not so sexy.
Caitlin has moved from ireland to australia (lesson 2: australia = sexy, ireland = not so sexy) to be near her breast cancer-bestricken sister and there has to get immediately rescued from the water by the family's usefully beefy friend Andrew.
Well it's fair enough i suppose, what girl can resist a man who says her life? Caitlin is casting andrew lusty looks even while she's still coughing up the salt water.
There follows much emotive baby related nonsense at the hospital, and i know that i shouldn't bother questioning the medicine in a mills and boon but really, I'm pretty sure (and the oxford handbook agrees with me) that rather than just standing around having passionate discussions about whether to deliver a pre-eclamptic woman they might want to try a bit of methyldopa on her first.
Anyway, Caitlin and Andrew get round to doing the nasty ( no description though god damn it, when am i going to get to learn the french for velvet over steel and other such essential phrases?) and she instantly decides she's in love with him. But then - disaster strikes! It turns out that she's not his type because she'd like to keep working after having kids and he believes a woman's place in in the home, who'd have thought, this being the 21st century and all?
Disaster strikes a second time when it turns out that caitlin is a) pregnant and b) might have breast cancer (i leave it you to decide which is worse).
Now here is where my real beef with this pile of tripe lies, i know everyone has got their own opinion about abortion but i don't read trashy novels like this to have someones pro-life agenda shoved down my throat. When Andrew finds out Caitlin is considering not keeping the baby he claims he "didn't think she was the kind of woman to abort a pregnancy just for sake of personal convenience". I'm surprised the author restrained herself from having Andrew call Caitlin a baby murdering devil bitch. I think finding yourself knocked up by some pre-historic thinking nobhead who you barely know is a good enough reason for a termination as any.
But of course, we're not in the real world and it turns out that Caitlin doesn't have cancer (shame)and falling in love has made Andrew think that maybe she can keep working after they have kids, (i know, how generous of him) so they just go an live happily ever after.
Not a fan, not a fan. still, i've got one more to go and 2 weeks left in France so fingers crossed the next one doesn't annoy me so much or i might have to start reading proper books all the time!
In the meantime i've started obs and gynae, and to be honest, not a fan of that either. I could partly be that the end is in sight now and therefore my enthusiasm (which has never been that high) is at an all time low. I was flabbergasted and horrified to be handed a sheet detailing the 5000 words, 20 reference report i'm supposed to write during my remaining 3 weeks here. Well, I can tell you, and i did tell them, that that is not happening and luckily they were alright about it.
It's somewhat frustrating, after having got to grips with most of the medical abbreviations to be in a new speciality where i suddenly don't know most of them again, and I've been on the high risk pregnancy unit which is just not that interesting although it should be.
I've had one day in outpatients which was a bit scary because i just got thrown into a room to take histories alone but doing the examinations with the doctor was quite good practise. That said - going to a gynaecologist in france - traumatic! The poor women are made to get completely starkers, have their breasts and "downstairs bits" examined with no sheet or gown or anything AND, the doctor was doing "touches vaginales" with only one hand gloved and no lube. (Now if you're reading this and don't see the horror in that sentence then don't think about it, cherish your ignorance.) and then just as a final insult they have to get weighed whilst completely starkers, i'm suprised more of them don't leave sobbing.
I'm doing surgery next week and will hopefully get to go to labour ward so if you're not too horrified/nauseated/bored by everything i've written today then i'll write about that before i leave Nantes for good (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!)
bisous alex
after a few weeks of reading some proper books i felt i couldn't leave you any longer without another review of some fantastic french literature.
This week i put myself through the amusingly titled "medecin et don juan" (rhyming, nice) which translates basically as "doctor and man-whore" (much better than the actual english title of "the play-boy doctors surprise proposal")
Our heroine is an irish ginge obstetrician called Caitlin and our hero is the dazzlingly be-muscled Andrew - a paediatrician. Already we are learning - fellow medics, pick your careers wisely - babies = sexy, old people = not so sexy.
Caitlin has moved from ireland to australia (lesson 2: australia = sexy, ireland = not so sexy) to be near her breast cancer-bestricken sister and there has to get immediately rescued from the water by the family's usefully beefy friend Andrew.
Well it's fair enough i suppose, what girl can resist a man who says her life? Caitlin is casting andrew lusty looks even while she's still coughing up the salt water.
There follows much emotive baby related nonsense at the hospital, and i know that i shouldn't bother questioning the medicine in a mills and boon but really, I'm pretty sure (and the oxford handbook agrees with me) that rather than just standing around having passionate discussions about whether to deliver a pre-eclamptic woman they might want to try a bit of methyldopa on her first.
Anyway, Caitlin and Andrew get round to doing the nasty ( no description though god damn it, when am i going to get to learn the french for velvet over steel and other such essential phrases?) and she instantly decides she's in love with him. But then - disaster strikes! It turns out that she's not his type because she'd like to keep working after having kids and he believes a woman's place in in the home, who'd have thought, this being the 21st century and all?
Disaster strikes a second time when it turns out that caitlin is a) pregnant and b) might have breast cancer (i leave it you to decide which is worse).
Now here is where my real beef with this pile of tripe lies, i know everyone has got their own opinion about abortion but i don't read trashy novels like this to have someones pro-life agenda shoved down my throat. When Andrew finds out Caitlin is considering not keeping the baby he claims he "didn't think she was the kind of woman to abort a pregnancy just for sake of personal convenience". I'm surprised the author restrained herself from having Andrew call Caitlin a baby murdering devil bitch. I think finding yourself knocked up by some pre-historic thinking nobhead who you barely know is a good enough reason for a termination as any.
But of course, we're not in the real world and it turns out that Caitlin doesn't have cancer (shame)and falling in love has made Andrew think that maybe she can keep working after they have kids, (i know, how generous of him) so they just go an live happily ever after.
Not a fan, not a fan. still, i've got one more to go and 2 weeks left in France so fingers crossed the next one doesn't annoy me so much or i might have to start reading proper books all the time!
In the meantime i've started obs and gynae, and to be honest, not a fan of that either. I could partly be that the end is in sight now and therefore my enthusiasm (which has never been that high) is at an all time low. I was flabbergasted and horrified to be handed a sheet detailing the 5000 words, 20 reference report i'm supposed to write during my remaining 3 weeks here. Well, I can tell you, and i did tell them, that that is not happening and luckily they were alright about it.
It's somewhat frustrating, after having got to grips with most of the medical abbreviations to be in a new speciality where i suddenly don't know most of them again, and I've been on the high risk pregnancy unit which is just not that interesting although it should be.
I've had one day in outpatients which was a bit scary because i just got thrown into a room to take histories alone but doing the examinations with the doctor was quite good practise. That said - going to a gynaecologist in france - traumatic! The poor women are made to get completely starkers, have their breasts and "downstairs bits" examined with no sheet or gown or anything AND, the doctor was doing "touches vaginales" with only one hand gloved and no lube. (Now if you're reading this and don't see the horror in that sentence then don't think about it, cherish your ignorance.) and then just as a final insult they have to get weighed whilst completely starkers, i'm suprised more of them don't leave sobbing.
I'm doing surgery next week and will hopefully get to go to labour ward so if you're not too horrified/nauseated/bored by everything i've written today then i'll write about that before i leave Nantes for good (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!)
bisous alex
Sunday 2 May 2010
May Day Francais styleee
salut mes amis,
this week was may day which in France is known as the jour de travail, it's like the big holiday in france so everything was shut - all the museums and that and there was no public transport at all so me and marie had to walk all the way into town to meet her parents,
when we got there we got to do some traditional may day activities though, including:
the giving of lily of the valley for good luck
nordic walking
and of course - protesting!
Sunday we took the boat over the river to the little fishing village of trentemoult, which is pretty but not much else, and had some delicious crepes lunch and then back over to place royale for yet more delicious ice cream - i'm getting as much of that in as i can.
We're down to our final 3 weeks now, I'm starting obs and gynae tomorrow at the horrendous hour of 8am, and marie starts rheumatology on tuesday have sneakily got a day off by "forgetting" there's no monday bank holiday here!
so i'm off to learn the french words for lady bits,
lots of love, alex
this week was may day which in France is known as the jour de travail, it's like the big holiday in france so everything was shut - all the museums and that and there was no public transport at all so me and marie had to walk all the way into town to meet her parents,
when we got there we got to do some traditional may day activities though, including:
the giving of lily of the valley for good luck
nordic walking
and of course - protesting!
Sunday we took the boat over the river to the little fishing village of trentemoult, which is pretty but not much else, and had some delicious crepes lunch and then back over to place royale for yet more delicious ice cream - i'm getting as much of that in as i can.
We're down to our final 3 weeks now, I'm starting obs and gynae tomorrow at the horrendous hour of 8am, and marie starts rheumatology on tuesday have sneakily got a day off by "forgetting" there's no monday bank holiday here!
so i'm off to learn the french words for lady bits,
lots of love, alex
Sunday 25 April 2010
Boats, floats and er....kidneys
salut mes amis.
It's been a busy week and a busy weekend. I returned back to the renal ward this week to try and be useful to the externes in the week before their exams, i really don't like that ward, it just constantly feels like a waste of my time. But on thursday I got to go and see a pre-transplant consultation and then friday see the nephrectomy and transplant. The nephrectomy was the craziest operation I've ever seen, they like made an incision, put in this weird port thing and then the surgeon put his arm in and was wriggling it around inside this womens abdomen, i half thought he was going to pull the kidney out there and then and go "ta daa". He did not. But he did still do the whole operation with his hand inside this womens abdomen, it was kinda cool. Then he did his victory route taking the removed and cleaned up kidney round to the other operating room where they were ready waiting for the kidney to go in.
Am spending next week mostly on dialysis i think, and I might try to go to a few more outpatients clinics. Am quite looking forwards to renal being over and starting obs and gynae though really.
Friday was the official one month countdown to our last day of placement here in Nantes, it's gone really quickly and 1 month seems like a nice manageable amount of time left. We celebrated on friday night with burgers (real fake cheese and everything) and a bottle of fizz mmmmmm.
Saturday me, marie, brittany and karen (who are american) and canadian chris who we went to the beach with last week did one of the things i've been wanting to do ever since we got here - we hired a boat and went boating up the Erdre, I call it 5 english speakers go boating up a french river.
That said, there was no bags of lettuce, we didn't happen across any smugglers or really have any adventures at all. There was ginger beer though and an amazing picnic including lovely fresh bread and sun-melted camembert and strawberries. It was a gorgeous day and really lovely getting out of town on the river and chateau-spotting as we got out into the countryside. Then we came back and in the evening went down to the night carnaval. we got a look at the line up of floats as we were walking down and .... they were EXACTLY the same as last week, with the exception of the odd dancing group added, and they'd taken the bikini top off the float with the health minister (tee hee). It was still raelly good fun though and we got into a massive confetti fight with this group of little boys - there is SO much confetti on my floor this morning. We finished the night with some churos or chi chi - these like fried dough sticks, greasy but good - i've never had them before.
So, one more week of renal for me, and neuro for me and then next weekend marie's parents are coming which I'm really looking forwards to. I'll add some photos shortly and I promise I'll try and find myself another trashy romance novel tihs week, i've been having a bit of a break reading proper books.
bisous
alex
It's been a busy week and a busy weekend. I returned back to the renal ward this week to try and be useful to the externes in the week before their exams, i really don't like that ward, it just constantly feels like a waste of my time. But on thursday I got to go and see a pre-transplant consultation and then friday see the nephrectomy and transplant. The nephrectomy was the craziest operation I've ever seen, they like made an incision, put in this weird port thing and then the surgeon put his arm in and was wriggling it around inside this womens abdomen, i half thought he was going to pull the kidney out there and then and go "ta daa". He did not. But he did still do the whole operation with his hand inside this womens abdomen, it was kinda cool. Then he did his victory route taking the removed and cleaned up kidney round to the other operating room where they were ready waiting for the kidney to go in.
Am spending next week mostly on dialysis i think, and I might try to go to a few more outpatients clinics. Am quite looking forwards to renal being over and starting obs and gynae though really.
Friday was the official one month countdown to our last day of placement here in Nantes, it's gone really quickly and 1 month seems like a nice manageable amount of time left. We celebrated on friday night with burgers (real fake cheese and everything) and a bottle of fizz mmmmmm.
Saturday me, marie, brittany and karen (who are american) and canadian chris who we went to the beach with last week did one of the things i've been wanting to do ever since we got here - we hired a boat and went boating up the Erdre, I call it 5 english speakers go boating up a french river.
That said, there was no bags of lettuce, we didn't happen across any smugglers or really have any adventures at all. There was ginger beer though and an amazing picnic including lovely fresh bread and sun-melted camembert and strawberries. It was a gorgeous day and really lovely getting out of town on the river and chateau-spotting as we got out into the countryside. Then we came back and in the evening went down to the night carnaval. we got a look at the line up of floats as we were walking down and .... they were EXACTLY the same as last week, with the exception of the odd dancing group added, and they'd taken the bikini top off the float with the health minister (tee hee). It was still raelly good fun though and we got into a massive confetti fight with this group of little boys - there is SO much confetti on my floor this morning. We finished the night with some churos or chi chi - these like fried dough sticks, greasy but good - i've never had them before.
So, one more week of renal for me, and neuro for me and then next weekend marie's parents are coming which I'm really looking forwards to. I'll add some photos shortly and I promise I'll try and find myself another trashy romance novel tihs week, i've been having a bit of a break reading proper books.
bisous
alex
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