[ Thursday, August 03, 2006 ]
Well, we've now moved house and started jobs. Has been a lot of hassle and a real pleasure at the same time, which is kind of strange but true.
The house is really lovely, we've still got lots of furniture to buy and things to sort out but we love it. I'll post some new pictures soon. The cellar (dining room) is done out like a 'pub' with exposed beams and whitewashed plaster... but... when Dan and Claire came to visit last week Dan worked out that it is, in fact, all fake and it's a perfectly normal cellar underneath. Actually good news because we have the option to strip it all out and have the room properly tanked and converted to an officially habitable room rather than the in-between status it has at the moment, and gain some extra head room at the same time.
Work is a bit strange, we're needing to adjust quite a bit to actually being doctors rather than just practicing at it. Katie is doing surgery and was on-call yesterday, but there wasn't too much to do and things are rather quiet because her consultant (=boss) is away. I'm doing neonatal medicine which is very small babies (mostly premature). Today we had training in resuscitating newborn babies who don't start breathing well/at all after delivery: kind of scarey but really good to know because people kind of expect you to do something if you're wearing ID that says 'doctor' on it (which is fair enough really).
We visited Loose Baptist Church last Sunday, which is the nearest church to our house (about 5 mins walk). We're thinking we will probably stay there - seems really nice and the general heart and attitude is really in line with our priorities and beliefs.
God has been really good to us over these past few months - we both got through finals without too much hassle, the completion date of the house was brought forward to give us a week in the property before starting work, our holiday in Corfu was lovely and just what we needed. We've been shown a lot of grace by our employers - there's lots of paperwork to fill in and hoops to jump through, and some of our new colleagues have had real problems getting everything sorted out, whereas they've generally been very helpful towards us, and we can only put that down to prayer and God's goodness. We really loved Church last Sunday and it was amazing to find an ideal Church family practically on our doorstep. The house and Maidstone are just what we wanted and needed - more about that another time.
Lee [9:21 PM]
[ Thursday, July 13, 2006 ]
Hooray!! After three weeks of packing stuff, making phone calls and generally getting frustrated, we're now in a position to move into our new house on the 22nd July. We had to get a new mortgage company, and we were told we couldn't move in until we start work on 2nd August, but since we signed all the paperwork they seem to have dropped that requirement and we're now ready to go.
We're off to Corfu tomorrow for a much-needed holiday; got a deal from lastminute.com. We're really not very good at living in temporary accommodation, tripping over our boxes of stuff and standing on possessions that we would prefer not to have crushed. We need order, and hopefully the new place will give us that.
Don't think we will get to do most of the visiting in England that we had hoped this summer, it ended up being a choice between that and Corfu, and we really need to lie on a beach with the phones switched off and locked up in the hotel safe! Now we've got a spare room we're hoping more people will drop in for a weekend so that we're not always the ones travelling.
Katie's bouncing off the walls now that the house is ours, I'm just exhausted and need to get away.
Lee [8:00 AM]
[ Friday, June 09, 2006 ]
Final Exam Stuff
Well, as I said, we've both passed. As far as we know all of our friends have, although there were seven people out of 250 who haven't, and currently we don't know who those people are. I feel very bad for them - it must feel awful - but I guess there has to be a cut-off point somewhere.
We don't know how well we did in terms of marks. To a certain extent it doesn't matter, although it would be good to know where our weak points lie in order to improve. Neither of us got merits or distinctions, althogh Katie already has merits from the two pre-clinical areas. A few people who we thought would do very well only got a bare pass which is a shame, but everyone is just so glad to have got through this.
Katie was very excited and jumping up and down, but I've been a bit quieter. I'm very happy, but for some reason not elated - I think I'm just really exhausted and it will take a few days to catch up on sleep and feel like it's all really happening. Next week we have a two day programme about what to expect as house officers (junior doctors) and I think the first coffee break where we're all sitting around talking about next year's jobs it will probably hit me fully. I'm also very aware of the responsibility of it all - of course we practice under supervision, but when I sign my name on a piece of paper it's my professional judgement I'll be using and my responsibility for what might happen.
Having said all of that, we're both really really happy and looking forward to some time off, and really grateful to God for bringing us safely through this. Mortgage is still annoying but we're hoping that ringing them up and saying that we have our qualifications might move things on...
Lee [8:51 PM]
We both PASSED!! We're so relieved and really happy. We're going to go down to the Students' Union now and check if all of our friends are OK. Praise God.
Lee [2:00 PM]
Results day today, should be out sometime after 2pm.
We both feel that we've done OK. We've missed things that we should have spotted and forgotten to say things that we should have said, but everyone we've spoken to has done similar things. It's easy to think we're going to fail because we'd both like to know the answer to 100% of the questions, but as I said before that's just not how it works.
We're going to go shopping now - it's my Gran's 80th birthday next week and we're having a family gathering on Sunday which will be really nice whatever happens.
We're not expecting to fail, but it's still really harrowing waiting. We're still praying because the examiners are meeting this morning to discuss 'borderline' candidates. We don't want to be on that list but if we are then we're praying for favour for us and all of our classmates who are safe and ready to practice.
Lee [8:54 AM]
[ Wednesday, June 07, 2006 ]
Two down and one to go! Yesterdays exam: after Katie finished we were able to talk and it turns out that most people struggled with the station that I wrote about yesterday, which is reassuring. Today's exam was much better - I would even say I enjoyed the last couple of stations which is quite something! I'm sure I didn't pick up every mark available - and as with any exam I came home and looked up a couple of things and realised lots of things I could have said - but I'm pretty sure I've done OK. Katie is taking hers at the moment.
I should explain these exams to non-medical type people, because I'm aware that if you stopped people in the street and asked 'what percentage of exam questions would you like your doctor to be able to answer in order to graduate?' they'd probably say 100%. In reality the pass mark is usually just above 60%. The reason is that they need to be able to identify very strong candidates and give them recognition because this is a professional exam that will help determine peoples' career paths, so the content is pitched to check that everyone who passes has the basic skills required, whilst allowing the best student to 'shine'. Just like the 'minor faults' in a driving test, you can get things wrong and as long as you haven't killed somebody or missed an obvious life-threatening sign, it's usually considered OK. 'Dangerous or unsafe' behaviour is referred to an examination board of experienced Consultant doctors and surgeons for consideration.
Yesterday afternoon and this morning a felt pretty awful about everything, prayed a lot, talked with Katie a lot, but this afternoon I feel a lot more like I'm going to be a doctor by Friday and I'm looking forward to getting tomorrow over with. Still praying for Katie although I'm expecting her to do fine this afternoon.
Lee.
Lee [1:11 PM]
[ Tuesday, June 06, 2006 ]
Had my first exam this morning, two more to go. Was difficult but I think I should have averaged a reasonable pass. It's quite difficult to know exactly how well it went, as with all of these exams, because it's very unlikely for a candidate to be able to answer every question correctly, and they have to be pitched to give Honours/Distinction candidates a chance to 'shine' (a category which I wouldn't presume to put myself in at this stage!) I think I made a bit of a mess of one of the five stations. Katie is due to take the exam this afternoon so I can't talk to her about it which is a little harrowing(!) - the Med School haven't forbidden communication in between sessions but we made an agreement not to.
(Ir)regular visitors may have noticed a lot more posts of late. I think there is likely to be a lot more as the year progresses because there's interesting things to write about and reflect upon all of a sudden!
Lee [1:15 PM]
[ Sunday, June 04, 2006 ]
Well, the exams are nearly upon us. We're both feeling like we've learnt as much as we possibly can. Our main feeling now is kind of performance anxiety - like we have to act in a play and we know all the lines but don't want to mess them up when we say them in front of other people. Of course, it's not an 'act' but to a certain extent (like in any practical exam) it is a performance with set piece motions that aren't really done every day on the wards. We both think we'll be OK, and will see you all on the other side.
We're grateful for the thoughts prayers, messages of encouragement etc. that we've had, and really appreciate the support.
For me this is the final chapter of what I felt called to nearly five years ago, and the beginning of the next part of finding out what that really means. It's quite exciting stuff, and I'm really looking forward to getting this coming week out of the way.
Lee [7:45 PM]
[ Tuesday, May 30, 2006 ]
We got our final entry letter for exams next week. We've both got all of the paperwork in to prove that we've done everything we're meant to do and now we just have to actually pass the exam. We're both feeling relatively happy - it's impossible to know everything that they might ask, but I think we've both got a reasonable spread of knowledge and certainly what we need to know to be safe junior doctors, so it's just a case of proving it to people next week!
The exams are on Tue, Wed and Thur with results being published Friday afternoon. Prayer/thoughts would be much appreciated. I've had problems this week with my neck, which gives me pain every so often but has been very bad since Saturday. I think it's OK now but I'm worried it will flare up next week so prayers for that also much appreciated.
See you all on the other side!
Lee [6:40 PM]
