Communication skills and internment

Irony of ironies. We had some evaluations today where we were sat in a room and told how we were doing for this rotation. I managed to be the last one. People 1 through 4 of our 6 person group spent about 5 minutes in there. Person 5 never came out. Literally 1 hour later she emerged (by then I was rather bored) in tears. She gets bad marks because although she’s very intelligent and works every night, she comes across as moody and uninterested. I come across as interested and willing to work, so despite having the medical knowledge base of a demented squirrel I get good marks. The irony is that when she came out I lack the communication skills to console her. Tis a rum do, to be sure.

I’m thinking about an internship. I do worry a bit about my knowledge base – it’s a bit pants at best. I’m not sure I feel confident so far to treat animals on my own, and we won’t be doing medicine again, only surgery, so that’s it as far as the chance to develop my skills goes. The two weeks we’ve just had have been invaluable, and I can’t help thinking that 6 weeks of this instead of work experience would be so much more useful. Perhaps an internship would force me to engage my brain cells again. Interestingly I asked the evaluating clinician about internships as I left today, and she mentioned that another uni used to do an anaesthesia internship that she herself completed. There’s a thought…