Hospital stuff

Le week-end is here! And I am really ready for it, it's been a tiring week.

My first day in hospital began stressfully with a strike across the tramlines - the tram stopped half way there and everyone had to walk part way past a barricade of wheelie bins on fire until the line was clear again. Luckily I managed to arrive just about on time to meet my consultant who was very friendly and showed me to the gastro department for my first placement.

There are so many differences between the CHU in Nantes and hospitals in the UK. Firstly, it's really strange having to get used to wearing a white coat (or a 'blouse') every day. I feel like everyone is looking at my shoes all the time because it's the only bit of my outfit I can see. The hospital is really nice inside. Most of the patients have a single room and it's maximum two people to a room - no wards! And barely a bottle of alcohol gel in sight, quite a contrast to NHS hospitals with their WASH YOUR HANDS signs all over the place. I suppose hospital acquired infections just aren't a problem here. The hours are quite odd as well, in my 'service' they seem to start at 8am each day and can just go home whenever all the jobs are done so it can vary quite a lot - for example on Thursday I finished at 3.15 but Alex didn't get out until 6.30. But everybody here takes a 2 hour lunch break! I said to one of the other students on the ward that it felt like a long time to me and he said 'Ohhh, on my last placement we only had one hour for lunch, it was terrible!'. Surely it would be nicer to take a shorter lunch break and have an extra hour in bed in the morning, or get home early in the evening...it will take some getting used to I think!

The language side of things is feeling really difficult too. It's frustrating when people ask you questions and you know the answers in English but just can't explain things using the technical terms in French. I've felt a bit like a spare part these past few days - everyone talks to me extreeemely slowly and if I ask if there's anything I can help with the answer is always 'no, it's OK thanks', which is difficult because until I get properly stuck in my French isn't going to improve all that much. Hopefully next week things will slowly but surely get easier!

I'll update in a day or two with some more interesting things about the fun things we've been doing, maybe with some photos of us at the tourist traps of Nantes! The plan for the weekend is sightseeing. Just wanted to put this stuff on here as it will help with the report we have to write for the medical school when all this is over. Maybe it will be useful for people coming to Nantes next year as well.

Night night
xxx