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Student Blog - Part 5: First term - Second Chances

Ward & Community visits

I love the visits. I learn so much from them. For me they come at just the right point; when I’m lost in the volume of science and wondering what it was about medicine that made me change my life to do it I get to go on a ward or community visit and it all starts to make sense again. I really enjoy meeting the people and hearing their (often) extraordinary stories. I know a fair few of my colleagues who get frustrated by the bureaucracy that accompanies arranging them but I don’t mind so much. I have encountered some people with nothing short of tragic stories and I find my heart goes out to them. My learning curve will be not to get as involved with patients as I instinctively want to and accept that I will be angered by the patients who don’t appear to care or appreciate the health they have. Many of the chronic patients I’ve met (most of them young people) cope with so much that they (yet again) illustrate just how fortunate I am to not only enjoy good health but to have been given a second chance in life.