Are we human

As a medical student, resilience is one of the keywords thrown around by the university and the student support team. I have been a witness to the breaking of bad news many a time and felt keenly for the patient and their family receiving it... but have never found myself personally affected, I have always been able to remain detached and focussed.

What does always seem to upset me is the personal jabs that random (and I mean random, haven't introduced themselves or asked me my name) other members of staff feel the need to aim at me. Maybe they are having a bad day, maybe medical students are easy targets that they won't get comeuppance for aiming the nasty barbed words at that they would if they made the same comments to their colleagues. But it is not on! We are human too and it is ridiculous that we should receive all of the rubbish. We shouldn't be questioned on our professionalism, blamed for leaving something in the wrong place when no one told us where to put it in the first place, criticised for trying to get logbook signatures when we should be concentrating on learning but if we don't get the logbook signed then we are criticised for not doing everything we were supposed to do in the placement.

Why are these little tiny things the things that make me cry for hours, feel like its the end of the world and I shouldn't be carrying on with medicine, when the big things, the things affecting people's lives, I can brush off without a second thought. Maybe that is the effect of having the resilience on everyone else's behalf, allowing ourselves to bear the brunt of other people's frustrations, sometimes the "human" pent up inside us needs to slip through the cracks, and all come out at once.

48 Hours in Rome

Late at night on Friday 1st December we flew out to Rome for a little getaway to celebrate my fiancé's birthday. The first excitement was our upgraded rental car... hello Audi A3 convertible! Driving through the city in the early hours to the hotel was certainly an experience, we then grabbed a few hours sleep ready for the morning's adventures.
Take a deep breath and some coffee, we packed a lot in...

A crazy dash through an unfamiliar transport system and we made it to our morning tour, of the Colosseum. It's certainly worth booking a tour; it enables you to jump the queues and access parts of the incredible Flavian Amphitheatre (the "correct" name, as we were informed) that the general public can't, such as a large platform at the base of the arena. 

When the tour was finished, we set off to explore the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum. In hindsight we should have done this as a tour also; it was difficult to know what we were really looking at! 

Time for food: I was famished by this point. Attempting to find somewhere off the beaten track, away from the tourist traps was our downfall; I was absolutely starving by the time we finally found a decent place to eat. This proper Roman Carbonara and the frascati we had with it was worth it, however. 

A 35 minute bus journey and a walk later, we were at the Vatican City. 

The Pope wasn't there, sadly. I had some thoughts for him. The queue to enter the Basilica and Sistine chapel were absolutely insane, I'm not sure we would have made our flight on Sunday night had we joined the queue on Saturday afternoon. Added to the list for the next trip! We didn't stay long but it was a wonderful place to look around. We also learnt that you can sell literally anything if you put a picture of the Pope's face on it. 

Next on our whirlwind tour, the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. And Sephora, but what's a girl to do? After a large debate about what happens when it rains in the Pantheon (there's a hole in the middle of the domed roof, we dutifully threw our coins into the fountain to guarantee a return trip to Rome and it was back to the hotel for some much needed sleep. 

The next morning we climbed the Spanish Steps and looked out over the city, got some gelato and wondered what there was left to see in the short amount of time we had left. We were aiming for a Christmas market, which Google Maps, usually so reliable, informed me was at Piazza Navona. Sadly, we discovered that it hadn't yet arrived in the city, but we were entertained by giant bubbles and a Michael Jackson impersonator in the square. 

After lasagne and some souvenir shopping, we were off to zoom around in our rental car with the top down and the heating on high before heading to the airport. We headed to the seaside at Ostia for the sunset.

An action packed weekend, not much of a relaxing holiday but a refreshing change from exams and work. It would be really easy to spend a weekend in the eternal city in an eternal queue, but we've proven that with a bit of planning (except at lunchtime on Saturday!), it's possible to fit everything in!

A xxxx

Positive mental blog attitude

I read so many blogs, follow the writer's Instagram, Facebook, twitter, admire their pictures, their openness and honesty. I am a strictly amateur photographer but I do love taking photos. I aim for several trips abroad a year (even when we can't STRICTLY afford to!), I'm a medical student, I'm planning a wedding and I could talk until the cows come home about make up and skincare. Also, I love to write, and was considering journalism before I decided upon a career in Medicine.

So why did I spend time setting up my own blog just to leave it at one post??

I've got a list of blog posts to write that I hope people would find interesting and relevant. The problem is time. I have my first deadline in a while on Monday, so of course I am doing anything to procrastinate from finishing that, hence my first post in a solid 6 months is today. My computer storage is full so uploading photos is a hassle I just give up on. I'm trying to have more positivity in my life in general.

This post may seem like a list of lazy excuses, but I am just exploring within myself as to why I don't blog when I know I would enjoy it. Time to stop complaining and use my long commute and my "pointlessly scrolling through Facebook" time to write!

A xxx

Name-Changing

Wedding planning. No-one ever warns you how much work actually goes in to creating a day that will be forever in people's memories, Facebook, instagram, photographs on the wall, the list goes on. Since getting engaged in October I've had a whirlwind few months of looking at venues, going to wedding fairs, (inhaling all the free prosecco, ahem), trawling the internet for postboxes and dresses and flowers and photographers, creating save the date cards, making the guest list, and the hardest part. Making sure we had everyone's address to send the save the dates to!

From my side it was easy, but my fiancé works 70-80 hour weeks and struggled to contact everyone. It was definitely a labour of love, but we eventually filled a Moleskine address book (£2.50 in the January sale of a random shop in St Pancras!) with all of the addresses of our loved ones.

Then came another awkward moment: names. So many of our close friends have changed their names in the last few years. At least a quarter or more of our wedding guests are doctors, be that medical, dental, or PhD. Several envelopes had to be torn up and rewritten as I tiredly wrote "Mr". Then, there are the people who have married in recent years. It felt so strange to be writing "Mr and Mrs" on those envelopes. And don't even get me started on the couples engaged or living together but not married. I didn't know whether to put first names, Mr this and Miss that (looks a bit clumsy on an envelope),

Argh! Wedding planning is definitely making me overthink everything. Including my own name. When we marry I'll become Mrs, but two years later (all going to plan) I will also be Dr. My fiancé and I both have the same initial, so do I take his name and us both me Dr and Dr A H, or take his name legally and keep mine professionally, or double-barrel?? I feel that name-changing is one of the most life-changing things that one can do. I have to get it right.