Starting Again

Wow, what a couple of weeks it's been! One week into the start of new life at uni and I already needed rest! We started on a Saturday which was unusual, with the groups of new people huddled outside the Medicine building which you have to join and introduce yourself to, before moving on to another group and forgetting everyone's names. The building is actually amazing! It sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the rather run-down Whitechapel, all futuristic and quirky-looking! And the main lecture theatre is too cool; award-winning design: all green with a few red chairs representing a poppy field (for some reason). But the library does retain its traditional look, maybe a bit too traditional...

Almost every night of both weeks there's been an event, obviously involving alcohol and the usual frolickings of freshers young and old, which I avoided, but which hasn't been an obstacle to my friend-making. We had loads of introductory lectures; a recurring theme this week, before having to go down to the Mile End campus for enrolment, for which we had to queue up for three hours! But it was a good opportunity to make friends and have proper chats. I'm actually surprised at the number of people I've become acquainted with during my first week; not only the 'hello and go back to your life' kind of friends, but the ones who would actually stop and talk. One guy I met on Monday was too cool (and still is), from Singapore, I have a feeling I'm going to get on well with him; having the same kind of humour and chilled-outness as my old maths buddy at college. Actually, forget that, I've just discovered that he has to go back to his country to finish off his national service. That really sucks!

Of the few highly-interesting lectures we had on the history of Medicine and everything, one was particularly eye-opening. A lady came in with her Doctor, and was HIV positive (the lady not the Doc). It was so enlightening hearing her story; that Medicine can't only take a person's well-being into account but also has to consider the social and political environment around that patient. It was sad learning that after she arrived from war-torn Northern Uganda, she contracted HIV and was kicked out by her partner after mothering her first (thankfully HIV negative) child, and then a second, and then learning of all the terrible side-effect inducing drugs that she had to take to suppress the virus inside of her. Very enlightening.

The first week ended with a lecture that terrified the hell out of us all, and is apparently an annual tradition at this university. We were all sitting there expecting "An Introduction Lecture on Clinical Medicine & Dentistry" and boy did we get it! The lecturer is apparently head of the Brain and Behaviour module, quite a large guy and the way he spoke made him the perfect pantomime villain. He went on about the rules, about people who turn up late not being allowed in, about our dress code and about his book that he wanted us to buy, and then there was the mobile phone incident. Someone's phone went off in the lecture and he warned that the next phone to ring would be dealt with. Sure enough, after a few minutes, a girl's phone did ring, and she was asked to come to the front, where he took the phone and dropped it in a jug of water! Everyone gasped! Later on he randomly read out two names who had to come forward, and to emphasise his point about buying stethescopes, he made the boy take off his top and the girl put her head to his chest and listen to the heartbeat. Towards the end we were all wondering who this freak of a lecturer thought he was, whilst he was showing dodgy pictures and figures from last year's fail rate, and that because extra students accepted the uni as a first choice, they'd have to kick out 55 students by the end of the year. Basically, we were all 'shook'... and that was until his last slide showed that the whole lecture was a spoof involving upper-year actors... Phew! But it really gave me an unexpected boost to make me start work.

The second week involved me meeting my new PBL (Problem-based Learning) group, and we had our first session dealing with a case of a guy who'd tested positive for HIV (it's like there are no other diseases in the world!) I volunteered to chair the group, which was me basically going through a set of points, making sure we'd covered our bases in terms of learning objectives, and getting a few members of our rather shy group to talk, but it was OK, and the next day (apart from sports trials and me forgetting my kit) we again sat in our group thinking up poster ideas for "Don't Believe Everything You Hear In the Media". Ah yes, sports... I wanted to do something different for a change, so instead of choosing football again, I went for badminton (which was way too crowded so I left early), and then the hockey trials, which were way far up North-East London somewhere. After a few drills we got down to the match, which is a bit like football, apart from the ball; which if you happened to kick with a bad toe, would hurt. They took my number down, and I went home.

And how can I forget Monday: Learning Landscape! We went down to Mile End in our labcoats and were given 'True or False' sheets to fill in about the human body and we were allowed to walk around the lab with all these bodies, bones and organs on display for us to touch and examine! Holding the brain was probably my highlight of the day :D

Thursday and Friday were mainly full of long Ethics lectures; quite interesting when you got into the swing of things, but initially very long-winded with very long words, but then he asked people what the definition of 'good' was, and then everyone started to pay attention. By the end, I left the lecture questioning loads of things that people could initially assume being 'right' or 'wrong', but with my new frame of mind, I now knew more than just patient consent and confidentiality. Learning about 'legal fiction' was particularly interesting!

Friday was also the second of our MMD (Muslim Medics and Dentists) events: a house party with a quiz on general/Islamic/Medical knowledge which really gets me going, and I began to answer questions I didn't know I knew the answers to! And, as with every evening of the past fortnight, I left for home shattered, and glad the weekend was ahead of me. And it's just the beginning of a hopefully long and successful time inshaallah.