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.

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.