SOCIAL MEDIA

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

From Preston to Blackburn

Assalammualaikum


I've come to terms that all medical students will have to travel to a lot of places, not for a day or two but for a week at least, being posted to different places and hospitals and clinics etc. When I was in year 2, I had to travel to Damansara every day for 3 weeks to do my electives. Later that year, I was sent to Hospital Orang Asli Gombak for 3 days. During early year 3, I had to go for Selectives in a private clinic for a week.

Now in year 4 when I am in England, from Royal Preston Hospital I've been transferred to Royal Blackburn Hospital, for 3 months. Fortunately, I've been given room to stay in, for free.


Blackburn and Preston are about 30 mins apart by car and 18mins by direct train.
Preston is in central Lancashire while Blackburn is in the east, that's like traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Semenyih in Selangor. And yes, the facilities are almost like that as well. Preston is a bigger town compared to Blackburn. So if I feel "a bit bored" in Preston, I feel "a lot bored" in Blackburn. Not only that, but I am also occasionally sent to Burnley General Hospital, which is even smaller than Blackburn.

So yes, even though I study in England (everyone knows it), and I am a student of the Univ of Manchester, I am rarely in Manchester. I think when I say "I am studying in England", people imagine London; the vibrant, noisy, busy city.

Truth is, I stay in a quiet decent town, 6 hours away from London, and are sent to even smaller towns. I sarcastically feel quite in a "Stone Age".

My tertiary educational life has been very funny and odd. When I started in INTEC, batchmates asked where did I go for my high school. I answered "SMK Cheras Jaya", and they went "Ohh... okay.. Where is that?". If my answer was Muar Science School, or MRSM Alor Gajah, or Sekolah Tunku Kurshiah, or any boarding school for that matter, I am sure they will give a totally different response, "Oouuhh...THAT school. My friend or cousin or whoever was also from there, do you know her?". When people ask me where do I go for college, they do not know INTEC. Had I answered Segi College, UM, UPM, Taylor's, I'll definitely get a different response.

The same goes for when people ask which medical school am I studying in. When I say IMU, most people do not know about it. UM, UPM, USM etc are more well known.

And now, when I say I study in the Univ of Manchester, and they were like "Ooohh...that's good". But the moment I say I stay in Preston, one of their eyebrows will start to rise. NB: Most Malaysian students do not know where Preston is, or the fact that it even exists. They know Lancaster, Manchester, Leeds, and all the big cities which have universities named after them but not Preston. Hmmm..nevermind. I am pretty sure I will work in a hospital where people know EXACTLY where is it. Hospital Serdang, or Hospital Putrajaya, or Hospital Melaka, or Hospital Tunku Ampuan Rahimah, etc.

Ok, back to Blackburn story.

In Preston, there were almost 90 of us in a year.

So the admin is not that efficient in managing us, unlike in Blackburn where there are only approx 20 of us, divided into 4 smaller groups. They manage us like crazy. They know exactly where we are, where we are supposed to be, what we are supposed to do and they informed the wards, the clinics, and any other units about us being there so that people LOOK FOR us. Almost nothing can be done outside their radars. There is a good and bad side for this. Good is, we become more hardworking because we know people are expecting us and we have our own logbooks to be signed off as proofs. The bad side is, we HAVE TO BE hardworking and cannot play truant because ppl are expecting us and they'll catch us in no time. *heavy sigh*

Not that I'm used to playing truant but don't you think there are those times that you just find the session not-so-useful that you decided that you'll do more by staying at home? I demand you to AGREE WITH ME. So I felt very restricted here. Fortunately, there are not many of those not-so-useful sessions over here. We are kept busy by running around the units, chasing after shuttle buses between Burnley and Blackburn and consultants and foundation doctors that are ever ready to teach us.

The fact that I skipped the first week of my 4th year made matters worse. I think I shall write my encounter with the deans and the horrible experience in another post since this is long enough.


Thank you for reading!

And oh, Blackburn Hospital does not have a wifi connection. Needless to say, so thus the free hostel building.

So the first week of my stay here, I was completely detached from THE world. I didn't even have my smartphone with me because I sent it in for repair, what bad timing. I felt so helpless, annoyed and cross. And the computers in the library take ages to load, I can even brew a cup of coffee by the time it finished loading. But things got a lot better now, I subscribed to an unlimited internet phone line, and I created a hotspot through my phone and I can connect my laptop to the internet :) *smiles*



-Because life is a test-





-AkMaR-

http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

1 comment :

  1. I AGREED WITH ALL THE ABOVE STATEMENT. hehe. sometimes mmg sesion tu boring (eg. scope or lap chole yg dh tgk beribu2 kali) and you just want to stay at home and setudiii. yes, exactly the same feeling. :D

    ReplyDelete