Passing on the knowledge...

With my exams done and the major stress left behind, I packed my bags and went to Italy to spend some time with my family!

For those of you who don't know this, my dad is a super-active person always up to something (I wonder who I've taken from!!!)And in fact, true to his reputation, he had arranged for me to deliver a couple of basic first aid courses to kids in the local primary school.I gladly agreed because I love children and of course, I think that the sooner first aid is taught to people, the better it is!

So off I went to class with the little ones...
Teaching to children is very different from teaching to adults...
Attention span is much shorter so you always have have to be on the lookout for signs of boredom and change your strategy as well as making the class extremely interactive.


These kids though were fantastic, wanting to participate in all activities (well, past the 1st moment of shyness, that is!!!) telling of all the accidents, of all the people that they have know for all of their lives... and how funny were they!!!!
I heard about people cut with a chainsaw, burnt to death, fallen off the stairs and broken every single bone in their body... Gotta love kids and their imagination!!!

I spent in all about 8h of my holidays passing on the knowledge and yet I feel like I have gotten from these kids more than they have gotten from me.
The laughter, the passion, the light-heartedness that so often we leave behind growing up.
They made my day special and, in passing on a very little portion of what I know, I found out that I received back many folds more...

I left between hugs and requests of coming back....and a few days later my dad was given by the school drawings of the ambulance, of the contents of the 1st aid little case we gifted the kids with and lots of short little messages for me, thanking me for the fun they had, for what they learnt...

The thing that made me smile the most though was that on my way out of the school, I overheard some of the parents talking between them and discussing first aid things they had learnt from their kids the day before...

Go kids go!!! :-))

The Ramblings of a bored mind...

Ok, I admit it, I should be paying attention but I just can’t.

The lecturer is a lady professor form Chicago with a rather annoying accent and let’s be honest, microbiology isn’t the most enticing subject.

I can’t believe tomorrow is the last day of lectures of my academic year… next year I graduate from St Andrews… Where has the time gone? I remember when I was just thinking of dropping the life I had before to get into this crazy routine I have which we call "being a student". Who would have said, over 15 years ago, when I attempted the Medicine entry exam in Milan (and failed miserably…) that I would find myself here today… or any day…?

Just a few months ago we accessed this new beautiful and modern med-school… It’s not the Bute, doesn’t have its character or location but it is indeed close to the beach…
Now, do you know how many times I have pictured myself going for a walk on that beach on my lunch break? Still haven’t done it!
I should really… Just, we always have so much to do that I prefer to get my lunch and hide with some mates in a tutorial room to read over my lecture notes.
It’s too cold here anyway, not like I’d get into the water… Possibly on the next sunny day…

Funny that years ago, when I had to decide where to go and leave, even though I have always professed a love for warm countries, I ended up choosing Scotland.

Far cry from my life on board cruise ships… not worse or better, just different!
I have things now I have always dreamt of: my own apartment, a cat (well, 3 cats!), some sort of sense of belonging, and a vision for the future… except that it keeps on changing…
That’s the beauty of life though, isn’t it?
My point is that you can have an idea in mind but you never know if it will turn out exactly that way.
Variables, that’s the problem, isn’t it?!
And I find myself sitting here in this lecture theatre, which is half empty because most people have decided that, seen the very rare sun outside, maybe it was a good idea to go over to the beach (I’m jealous now!) thinking about a million things except the sputum that the lecturer is trying to describe… and thank goodness, because I had broccoli soup for lunch and the sample slide mildly resembles that, so I prefer not to look at it.

But hey, eight more minutes and I can go home, drive for an hour and half, be greeted by loud purrs, just before the supermarket people get there to deliver my weekly shopping which I finally decided to do yesterday while eating the last remains of the most amazing chocolate ice-cream.
Yes, that spurred the idea of getting some more…

I just looked out the window… sun is gone…
...and apparently so is my brain!

Aahhh, builders!

Hands up if you like me have been victim of some kind of laid back builder (or know someone who has been!) where it felt like a mission to get even the simplest stuff done properly, efficiently but most of all within a decent time frame!

My own experience was with my 2 little bathrooms which I wanted redone after we moved into my flat 5 years ago. It took them over 2 months to be stripped, re-tiled and plastered and then WE had to paint them because that would have added minimum another week to the already dreadful schedule!

Please honest, hard working builders out there, don't get offended by this post... I know you're good and I so wish you had been the ones working in my apartment, but there are a few workers in your category who unfortunately give you a bad name... believe me, I've heard the lamest excuses!

All this came to my mind when earlier today I came across this unbelievable video of builders in China who brought up a 15-floor high building in 6 days... I mean, 6 DAYS!

Can someone please explain me why did my bathrooms take 2 months?!? It is beyond me...

Little siesta? Why not? We have a long tradition of siestas in Italy, but they last an hour or so and not a whole afternoon...
Sunny day? Of course I understand... you only work half day as sun is so rare up here in Scotland... wish I could go out and enjoy it too!

Cup of tea? Sure... But I said "A" cup of tea, maybe 3 and not 20...

Biscuit with the cuppa? I'll even make a special trip to Tesco to go get the custard creams for you as long as you finish my friggin bathrooms before I manage to pay my 25-year mortgage!!!

Guess the next time I decide to do some kind of remodeling in my flat I may think of checking for Chinese heritage... seems like they know what they're doing!

The 5 seconds rule

Just a few weeks ago I happened to drop a chocolate sweetie on the floor in the med-school lecture theatre and, to great disbelief of some friends sitting around me, I picked it up and proceeded to eat it anyway.

“Eewww” and “Are you insane?” are possibly the nicest things I got told in that moment and I wondered “Insane? Why insane?” And so the 5 seconds rule came to mind… HA!
The 5 seconds rule states that it is safe to eat whatever bite fell on the ground if it hasn’t stayed there for longer than 5 seconds (presumably because bacteria, dust, mites and all other lurking and disgusting things haven’t had enough time to contaminate said bite).

Obviously pathogens attachment is instantaneous and brushing things off with my hands didn’t do much to limit the damage but now let’s be logical:

- my candy didn’t fall in the middle of the street (I got told that’s where bug gangs have the habit of congregating so beware!) so that wouldn’t be as safe as the med-school floor.
- though as a good “almost doctor” I do have the tendency to try and keep my hands clean, it’s not like they are the most hygienic place where a candy could ever end (you know, before I unwrapped my sweetie I lifted my backpack that was sitting on the floor, a street sidewalk precisely, so bug gangs may have been hitching a ride to school with me)
- I like to keep fit through a variety of activities and so I wanted my immune system to exercise a bit by giving him a challenge… (have some bugs, will ya?!)

Jokes aside, it is proven that a lot of those people who never stress their immune system a little will have the tendency of getting sicker than those who once in a while will indulge in a little “forbidden bite”.
Keeping everything as close to sterile as possible, as many people have now the tendency to do, could actually be more harmful than beneficial. One could get shielded form the most common forms of bacteria or viruses to then get rather sick fighting the infection of something that shouldn’t create too much trouble.

I’m not saying that unless what you have dropped on the floor it’s walking on its own is still edible, but certainly the 5 seconds rule (provided the environment it is applied to is considered “clean”) it is actually a very good and humorous way of helping our immune system to get some muscles and be better prepared for its duties.

Plus honestly, who would want to miss out on a chocolate sweetie?!? I just had to retrieve it!!!

Feeling stressed? Have a dog!

This is what the Law School of Yale seems to think...

Yale, which is renowned for its competitiveness, is starting a pilot programme next week in which student s can "borrow" a dog for half an hour to de-stress.
Monty (and the name is really all we know about the pup!) is a therapy dog, hypoallergenic (or so it's stated) and will be available to play for 30 minutes at a time beginning next Monday for a 3-day trial run.

The law librarian wrote an email to all students advertising this initiative and stating that "it is a well documented fact that visits from therapy dogs have resulted in increased happiness, calmness and overall emotional well-being in people"
They are used in hospitals, communities, schools so why not at Yale?!?

Besides the logistic (does Monty have a secretary filling in his diary with appointments? What if Monty can't be bothered going for "walkies" 5 hours a day? And what about his salary... would a sausage do???) I personally find the idea brilliant!
Therapy dogs have an outstanding temperament, gentle disposition and an incredible degree of friendliness which make them absolutely perfect for such a task as this.

As a matter of fact, what about suggesting to my med-school considering to adopt the same idea? I'm sure many of my fellow students wouldn't mind taking the "furry therapy" for a walk on the beach, playing ball for a bit, going for a stroll in town or just taking a little break on the wooden area in our school yard, lazying in the sun (those 5 days a year when sun shines in Scotland!) enjoying cuddles.

Yale got it absolutely right:

- An introduction to legal reasoning? Check!
- A cute dog? Check!
- A cracking idea? Check

Now let's just hope that Monty won't become over-stressed himself with all of these play dates!!!

The pain charts

I have recently started my merging into Dundee Medical School as there is where I'll go for my clinical years of training.

Of course, being that Tuesday was our first day of the programme and I wanted to be prepared for whatever I would need to face, I thought to look up some of the clinical skills that we have been taught at St Andrews.

Communication skills are, in my opinion, the most important skills you'll ever learn in medicine. You can be a fantastic doctor but if you're not able to communicate properly with the patient all of your science is pointless.

One of the aspects of the communication with the patients that we have to get right and that we are practically brain-washed about is pain.

How do you describe it?
Does it radiate?
What type of pain is it?
Does anything make it better? Or worse?

What brings it on?

Is it continuous? or it comes and goes?
And most of all... can you rate it???

Oh dear... how do you rate pain???
Because if you ask someone like me whose pain threshold is non existent I'll tell you that if you shake my hand too sternly I'm in agony!

But you can ask my brother, who plays basketball with a probably broken finger, he doesn't really complain!

So let's say that pain is definitely subjective.

Doctors have several ways of trying to get out of the patient some sort of pain score and one of my favourites is the pain chart with little faces expressing their degree of discomfort.

So, here I give you the NHS pain chart!

I have 2 main problems with that:

1- Where are the odd numbers? I mean, what if my pain was #7... It doesn't "hurt a whole lot" but "hurting even more" doesn't exactly cut it!

2- Why is #2 smiling?!?!!

So I looked up on internet and researched if there was anything a bit more appropriate.

Maybe we could learn from other countries and see if they had something dare I say "less condescending"?!?

Well, obviously someone had thought pretty much the same thing as I did and designed its own pain chart... Now, this is what I call descriptive!

Have a look and please do tell me if you wouldn't think your feelings of pain to be better expressed by these images!

I commend the creator and had fun matching my own version of the pain scores to the number.

0- Hi, I'm not experiencing any pain at all, I don't even know why I'm here!
1- I am completely unsure whether I'm experiencing pain, or itching or maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth
2- I think I may need a plaster

3- This is distressing, I don't want this to be happening to me at all

4- My pain is not messing around man!
5- Ow...ok, my pain is super legit now!
6-Why me???!!!
7- I see a green monster coming towards me and I'm bricking it!

8- I am experiencing a disturbing amount of pain... I might actually be dying, help!
9- I am almost definitely dying

10- I am actively being mauled by the green monster I saw at #7
11- I am going to auto destroy at any moment
Too serious for numbers - any comment coming out of the patient's mouth would be most definitely censored!

Of course this chart is meant for fun only but nonetheless, I consider it a possible great addition to the doctor's tools... if anything, it might improve that oh-so-vital relationship with the patient by means of conjuring a smile on both sides!

The strange case of the UFO and the time gain

Have you ever seen a UFO?
Do you even have an idea of what it may look like?

I remember when I was just a little girl, I felt quite disappointed when my dad explained to me that actually UFO wasn't a synonymous of alien space-ship but instead was simply the acronym for unidentified flying object... the definition kind of make it lose all of its charm, don't you think?
Or at least it did for me...

I remember then years later when the TV series "The X-files" came out, there had been a huge surge in reports of UFO sightings, first in the USA, and then in many other places as the series reached other parts of the world...
One has to wonder how easy it is to condition somebody's mind but anyway...
I came across this piece of news today and thought it appropriate to share it here...

It was an unseasonably mild night in late October, in Barnes, south-west London, when Mr Man (I have just decided to call him like that!) took to his garden with a drink defeated by the impossibility to get to sleep...
Apparently, after a few moments of peace, he heard the distant roar of engines getting louder and louder and saw a huge UFO passing right over his house, heading west at great speed.
Mr Man described the craft as a "cigar-shaped vehicle with large projectiles on each side like wings and it seeming to have two very bright lights at the front and a white light flashing round and round underneath", he went on saying that he believed having seen coloured lights at the end of the projectiles and also a line of lights (windows maybe???) along the side but he wasn't quite sure as he was terrified!!!

Mr Man thought of calling the police right away but then decided to leave it to the next day and return to bed where, surprisingly for someone suffering from severe insomnia, he fell asleep immediately.

Well, after such an experience, the morning finally came and he decided to write a letter accounting everything to the Ministry of Defence.
In this letter he also expressed the belief of having been abducted because when he woke up, he realised he had gained a whole hour (the same one he had spent the night before out in his garden pondering the UFO appearance)

Should I really give away the fact that the MoD wrote Mr Man a response explaining that the clocks had gone back the night of the sighting and that would explain his gained hour???

So the poor Mr Man was deprived of his "close-encounter" experience... no real UFO, no need to panic, no abduction... Imagine the disappointment!

Oh, cheer up Mr Man, we're all thankful here, at least you have given us a good giggle!!! :-)