31967: A medical student without a hospital
A typical day now, mid-Covid, is simply the total opposite of clinical rotations. Now I usually wake up whenever suits, sans alarm, and rather than quickly getting ready and scurrying to the John Radcliffe, Warneford, or Churchill for a long day, I simply migrate down to the garden and enjoy a leisurely breakfast in the (often present) sunshine.
Initially it was difficult to fill the days with something new - our student world was changed rather suddenly and adapting was pretty surreal - but now I'm delving into languages that haven't been studied for a good while, actually getting through those books that previously had been one chapter a week - if I wasn't too tired or busy, utilising the comforts of a well-stocked kitchen with regular cooking and baking (i.e., using up the household supply of scarce flour), exercising, spending time with family, and generally relaxing - on the premise that this may be the last period of relative serenity before work as a doctor begins, and should thus be appreciated and used wisely. Had the pandemic happened a year later, things would be very different.
Medicine hasn't left the picture entirely, however - despite unscuessful attempts to help at local GPs (they're too quiet to need any, fortunately) I'm doing a little work each day, and naturally everything Covid is ever-present, coming in waves of headlines and academic papers.
The most surreal (and frustrating, at times) aspect is seeing and hearing from colleagues and other health workers who are still on the front line, now veiled in PPE - I'll be watching a news report with family, say, and some beeps will go off in the background - not at all unfamiliar, just a blood pressure monitor having done its job. Much of the equipment is recognisable, the protocols, what that little symbol scribbled on the whiteboard means. Yet I'm here, sitting on a couch over a hundred miles away - just watching, powerless to help, along with everyone else.
