The 500 level class is gradually coming to an end. And it is high time we revisited a lie we all all allowed to slide at the beginning of the year: that part 5 is a chill class.
From corridor postings to exhausting block lectures, this is the story of the 500 level class your senior colleagues won’t tell you.
Our story began in February when the sun was scorching. I began with Paediatrics. 14 weeks. The first two weeks of block lectures are hell. 8am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday. The seats inside the lecture hall are wooden and uncomfortable. And the distance between each seat and table will have you questioning the qualification of the carpenters. But the real suffering started whenever there was power outage and the heat became unbearable.
Not clerking is a severe offence
When posting started and the group was divided into two, the group in Ife bagged their first corridor posting in the first week. Ward 1 was thrown into disarray when Dr A decided to show up for rounds on a random Wednesday morning. He entered the ward and ordered the students in haemato-onco and nephrology to show him their clerking. Everyone with clerking issues was sent to the corridor.
No clerking at all, corridor posting. You clerked, but didn’t examine, you’re doing corridor posting. You clerked and examined but didn’t write investigations and management…DO YOU WANT TO HAVE VETO FAILURE???
Soon we learnt our colleagues in Ilesha were battling for their lives. The Chief Reg had drawn up a rigorous call schedule that made every student do calls on alternate days. Like the Isrealites, they started grumbling. By the 3rd week, none of them could bear the workload.
Mid-day presentations and Prof K’s 7am classes are the most dreaded curricular activities in Ilesha. You think pharmacology 7:30 class is early, wait until you start running to infant welfare clinic 7am on a Saturday morning. And you dare not go to Prof K’s class with an empty head.
Calls and extra calls
From paediatrics to O&G, another 14-week long posting well known for its notorious morning reviews. There is nothing chill about O and G. 6pm to 6am calls is not chill. You could be in the theatre 1 o’clock in the morning watching an SR make a pfannenstiel incision on a 30-year-old grandmultipara, against your will. Worst are the extra calls they give as punishment, of which I was a regular customer.
They said ‘subs is the rest station,’ but that’s the worst lie. When I took their advice and decided it’s a good Tuesday to skip dermatology posting, I got myself an indefinite call at A & E.
While saying part 5 is chill is not entirely wrong, especially when compared to the class before it, it creates a false impression.
Clerking is not fun. (Definitely not mental health clerking.) Seminar presentations are more often. Postings no longer end by 2. And stabbing is now ten times more difficult. Part 5 is all about showing up everyday; nothing is chill about that!
Definition of Common Terms
CLERK: To take a full detailed history, examine all systems and arrive at an accurate diagnosis without checking the case note. This is what every medical student does.
CLERK CASE NOTE: To snap and copy the clerking in a patient’s case note with the aim of presenting it as yours. Medical students don’t do this.
CORRIDOR POSTING: A punishment in paediatrics for not clerking.
EXTRA CALL: A punishment in O & G for not clerking.
SEMINAR PRESENTATION: In clinicals, a common activity that involves teaching a topic to your group members (using a slide that’s not yours) and taking their questions, at the end.
STAB: To unwillingly miss posting because you had diarrhea or malaria.
WARD ROUND: The place where your stufflessness is fully exposed.
Check out other posts like this here.
Leave a Reply