Hello, my name is Jessica – I am one of the 2nd year ScotGEM students who has recently been on rotation away up in Inverness. I had originally picked my rotation to experience the Highlands in ‘the Summer’ – I think we maybe missed the few sunny days that must’ve passed because we did see a lot of rain, but it took a lot more than summer showers to rain on our parade!
I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Inverness, it was really exciting to head straight up at the beginning of second year and something I had been looking forward to for months now. Moving around like we do in ScotGEM is a real privilege and very exciting. It’s a great opportunity to not only see all different corners of Scotland and live in places I maybe wouldn’t have before – but also proves an excellent learning opportunity to see how the different health boards work. For me, I think this a really attractive part of the course.
For the past 6 weeks we have been studying a “Birth and Early Years” block. This has meant a collection of cases surrounding paediatrics and obstetrics mainly, with experience in primary care and in secondary care placements. I enjoyed the variety of my placements, some of which involved travelling to centres such as Dingwall, Culloden and Nairn. A real highlight from my time in Inverness was the opportunity to scrub in on a C-section on placement, something I could never have imagined I would be doing at this point in our medical education. It was a real buzz and such a privilege to witness childbirth and to be so close to the action. I’m very grateful to the staff at Raigmore for making the time for us (and my perpetual questions!). In addition to superb placements, we also had a very engaging clinical mentor who kept us on our toes with expert patients and also made sure we saw lots of relevant patients to our case that week.
That being said it wasn’t all placements and studying – we also managed to scope out a lot of what Inverness and the Highlands had to offer; from delicious ice cream to the best spot for dolphin sightings. I did eventually get my dose of Highland sun as the rotation came to an end, as I took a big detour down to Dumfries to visit the North West Coast which was really special.
Next stop Dumfries!