Registrar Riddle Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suppose there are 5 GP Registrars all living next to each other in hospital accommodation. The accommodation is set out as 5 flats in a straight row 1 to 5. Each flat is decorated inside in a different colour and each of the Registrars lives alone without distraction, such is their dedication to their GP vocation and training! Each Registrar has a favourite tipple that cushions the long hours in the eportfolio documenting their experiences and reflective practice. The registrars all work in the hospital but are all attached to different GP practices and they all have a favourite sweet which is specific to them. 

1.   Mary lives in the red flat.

2.   Jim is attached to a practice in Beauly.

3.   Emma drinks beer.

4.   The flat decorated green is just to the left of the one decorated white.

5.   The registrar in the green flat drinks red wine.

6.   The registrar who likes wine gums is attached to a practice in Forres.

7.   The registrar in the yellow flat likes Sherbet Lemons.

8.   The registrar in the middle flat drinks tea.

9.   Finlay lives in the first flat.

10. The registrar who likes pan drops has a neighbour who is attached to a practice in Inverness.

11.  The registrar who likes midget gems drinks orange juice.

12.  The registrar who is attached to a practice in Elgin lives next door to the registrar who likes Sherbet lemons.

13.  Euan likes Jelly Babies.

14.  Finlay lives next door to the blue flat.

15.  The registrar who likes Pan Drops lives next door to the registrar who drinks gin.

 

But who is attached to the Aviemore Practice? 

News from Caledonian....December ST3 course

The ST3 Course took place in Centre for Health Sciences in Inverness over the 6th & 7th December. The two days kicked off with a day of CSA sharing and practice lead by an experienced GP, a near-peer GP and GPST who had recently passed the exam. Top tips and advice were extracted from the facilitation team and time was given over to understanding the exam, practicing techniques and facing the fears…

Day two followed the CSA theme with a morning of ‘Results not to lose sleep over’ the material for which was delivered by the laboratories and lead by Adam Brown, Consultant Microbiologist. A great opportunity to ask the questions we need to ask and hear the reassurance regarding those results which always ‘appear’ at 5pm on a Friday afternoon! As pictured here the morning began with a tour of the labs and for many the first time back in a lab coat since dissection at university! Our follow-on afternoon was an entertaining and lively affair with ‘Genetics and Ethics’ delivered by GP and Genetics Consultant Dr Helen Gregory, a great foundation for those CSA genetics questions that pop up with frustrating regularity.

During the two days the ‘Registrar Riddle Competition’ ran with a fantastic prize of ‘What’s in a Story, Lessons and Reflections in General Practice’ by David Orlans et al. The winner had to be drawn from the deluge of correct answers such is the quality of GPST training on the Caledonian and Rural Track Programmes...

…but can you solve it (for fun!)?

Dr Mark Taylor ES & GP Associate Advisor, NES, Inverness Office.

So you think you're remote and rural......

Part way through my 6 month psychiatry & general hospital placement in Wick I'm back out on the Thailand Burma border, combining my many medical loves: remote & rural medicine; infectious diseases (two weeks of dedicated teaching - hooray!); poverty/development; mosquitoes (ok, that last one is a lie).

From ensuring the students (village medics from across the border in Burma) know how to take (and interpret) a temperature; to an overview of antimicrobial resistance & stewardship, to introducing sepsis and early management. Recognising of course that our students are truly remote and rural: like most GP surgeries they have no access to blood tests (*strikes WCC off list of indicators*) let alone blood gases (bye bye lactate). However, many of their clinics are functioning as GP surgery and local hospital. They will have to do their best to manage not just early resuscitation and transfer to hospital but in some cases early resuscitation, ongoing resuscitation, ongoing management, deterioration and outcome. 

Wick, although it's physically attached to the rest of Scotland, can feel much more remote than Orkney sometimes. The fact that there is a road link means that not only do we have to decide if a patient needs transferring to Inverness (or occasionally Aberdeen); we also have to assess whether they're road-ambulance sick or flight-ambulance sick - "How sick is my sick patient?"

However all this fades into insignificance on the border, in a forgotten country, among a persecuted ethnic group. Hospital? What hospital? Some luxuriate in a 2-4 hour motorcycle ride to reach a hospital (and I haven't yet dared to ask what the hospital is like). But at least one clinic is a full week away from the nearest hospital. On foot. We are (understandably) upset when we can't send our patients south to ITU because of the weather, or because the planes are delayed by other emergencies. But imagine having no ITU; no investigations - only limited clinical knowledge, a small selection of antibiotics, and IV fluids! 

I'd love to visit them in their clinics in the Karen State, do some training on location. For now, that's impossible - so I'll keep visiting them in the camps in Thailand (and meanwhile keep on enjoying the mosquito free, cool winds and seas of Orkney & Wick!)

Dr Alison Lievesely

GPST
, Rural Track Programme