Teaching Tuesday

It's a Teaching Tuesday this week and not Thursday.

My day started with a continuation of the same online seminar I had Friday morning. The Neurosurgical Fellow leading the class began by finishing up the subarachnoid haemorrhage case from last week. Then, he presented a stroke case. It was once again quite an interactive class. In each case, we answered questions and discussed the associated investigations, considerations, and management of the patients.

When the teaching was over, I made my way to the Acute Brain Injury Unit (ABIU)/Rehab ward. My doctors weren't too busy and were sitting in the office chasing up some tests and referrals for our patients. 

After lunch, I got the results of my COVID-19 PCR test from yesterday. As expected, it was negative. 

Later in the afternoon, I had bedside teaching. The doctor leading the session met the other student and me at the ABIU/Rehab ward. We found an empty interview room and sat there to discuss the peripheral nerve examination. Once we'd gone through everything it was time to put it into practice. We went to the ward and looked around for a patient. The doctor introduced us and asked the patient if it would be okay for us to practice performing a physical examination on them. The patient agreed. 

We put on aprons and gloves and entered the room. The other student began with the upper limb examination and I performed the lower limb. It was a difficult examination because the patient was sitting in a wheelchair and not lying in a bed, but as the doctor pointed out, "sometimes, we will not be able to do physical examinations in the ideal positions." When we concluded the exam, we thanked the patient and went to the hall to remove our apron and gloves. Outside the room, the doctor asked us to describe our findings. Our physical examination found that the patient was suffering from right hemiparesis/hemiplegia and some sensory loss on the right side of their body along with dysphasia. Next, we discussed the potential causes of the symptoms. Both I and the other student said, "left hemispheric stroke." In this case, even without a patient history, we could deduce what happened to the patient. The doctor was pleased and ended our teaching here.

I grabbed my backpack from the doctor's office and made my way to the tube. I got on and it wasn't long before it was time to get off. As I walked towards the exit, I noticed the large group of people huddled in front of me blocking both the exit and the entrance. It was pouring rain and everyone was trying to take cover. I put my hood up and grabbed the umbrella from my bag. Thank goodness I have been travelling with it, waiting for this day. 

I made it home safely, but not completely dry. Between my jacket and the umbrella, the majority of my body stayed dry and warm. From my knees down, I was soaked. I guess it's official, the British weather has caught up to me! Hopefully, the weather goes back to being sunny like last week, however, looking at my Weather app there's not much hope of that over the next few days.