Moving on

So my time in anatomy is over. Almost 2 years to the day since I left the last ED I worked in and changed jobs, got married and moved country (or at least crossed the border…) I am now on my way back to full time ED employment.

This post is a little bit of a sentimental and professional reflection on the past two years.

In the last two years I have:

• learnt how to teach.I always enjoyed teaching whatever poor med student was stuck with me in the department but I never got that much of an opportunity to do so. Now after over 50 lectures given and countless hours in the disscetion room teaching students I have some grasp of at least how I like teaching. I have an inkling I’m not bad it, but I definitely understand how I teach and that I like it. I summarise my philosophy of teaching (with tongue firmly in cheek) as follows. They’ll be worth a post on their own some day.
  • personality
  • passion
  • relationship
• learnt lots of anatomy. I was a notoriously below average med student. Largely due to lack of motivation or an understanding of how much this stuff really mattered. As a result I graduated knowing very little and discovered what a wonderful job it was and how little I knew about it. Post-grad study of the basic sciences should be revision but it seemed too often like the first time round for me! I have no doubt that I am now a better clinician because of it.
• started this website. I am not long past my first birthday on this site. I started it cause I was an ED doctor who didn’t work in the ED and wanted some way to keep in touch with things and keep myself motivated. Like most people involved in the web2.0/social media/e-learning revolution I’m fairly positive on the effect it’s had. Not only have I acquired all kinds of knowledge about EM, I have also developed links (both real and online) with people from all round the world. The site has bee visited about 50,000 times in the past year and currently seems to pull in 250 views a day. It has opened all kinds of opportunities that I never expected and still remains as fun and challenging as it was.

I have to go learn how to be an ED doctor. My slightly tangential career path has left me 8 years post grad with another 6 years or so to qualify as a fully certified emergency physician. While I probably have a more detailed knowledge of the EM literature than a lot of folk I have a sever deficit in probably the single most important quality in an ED doc – experience. I have a hell of a lot to learn and as always the best place to learn the skills, practices and virtues of being an ED doctor is in the ED.

Working in the ED is, however, bloody hard work. So you can expect a decrease in the amount of activity on here so forgive me in advance.

Lastly…

Thanks, above all to the academic and technical staff of the anatomy department of TCD. Good and passionate people who imparted all kinds of skills and knowledge to me.

And cheers to the varied students who I’ve had the honour of teaching and learning from in the past few years. I know at least a few of you read the blog so please feel free to keep in touch.