And my first year is nearly done

So this week was the last week of university lectures and I’m really going to miss seeing everyone. After lectures, a few of us always visit the university cafe together for something to eat and to swap stories and since the weather’s been warm, we make a point of sitting outside at the tables overlooking the river. This makes a nice end to the week and you just can’t beat fish, chips and a Costa coffee in the sunshine.

It’s also only two weeks before the end of trimester 3 and that’s it – first year done!!!!  All I need to do is get my final assignments in and then I can relax. This trimester we’ve had two assignments, one on anatomy and physiology and the other a reflective essay based on a patient complaint. Both very different and both very challenging. One tip I can give any prospective students is – Do your referencing as you go along. Someone told me that before I started but I totally forgot about it for my first assignment – that was one Big Mistake! It took me longer to sort out the referencing than it took to write the original assignment. So that was one lesson I learned the hard way.

In addition to the assignments, I’ve still got to get my surgical PAD (Practice Assessment Document) signed off which is proving difficult, as my supervisors and assessor keep getting moved around the hospital due to the situation with increased numbers of Covid patients. This increase had meant a lot of elective surgery lists have been cancelled and only day case surgery, trauma and emergency theatres are running. I will be so glad when things return to normal, whatever that is now? In fact wearing a facemask all day now just seems normal and when you take it off it feels quite weird. I expect they will be here to stay for some time yet, especially in hospitals.

Anyway, I’m ending this week on a mission, to track down my assessor and try and get signed off. Fingers crossed.