After a formal dinner where we were seated with our teams, the people who we were going to be working together with for the next few days, it was back the lecture hall for some essential information for what was about to come. The night ended with all the students going happily to there rooms.
The next day started early with a serious set of exams that were voluntary and were set by Charles University, Prague, an international university who were recruiting on Medsim. The exam was later followed by an interview in the evening and if both were satisfactory students were given a conditional offer. I managed to attain one but personally the exercise was more for the experience than for the place. The day then continued with the partial work. I found this experience amazing as our group tried Key Hole Surgery and were taped performing this, X-rays, Ultra sound, emergency medicine, suturing, ECG, injections, palpation and cannulation. The experience was truly fascinating and I learnt so much. The evening ended with a warning that everyone was on call, many students took no heed and went to get acquainted with a certain Mr Ethanol, which some latter lived to regret…
It was 2:30 am and the halls roared with screams of “EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! Get up!”. I shot up with terror and remembered I was on call and ran around in utter confusion trying to put on any cloth and finding my white coat and stethoscope. I ran into the corridor and met up with sleepy eyed students and some drunk ones and together we all fell downstairs and into one of the many waiting ambulances. We raced into the darkness, which we latter worked to be around the campus and got out to be shouted by the organisers to hurry up. No matter how fast we were running it was not fast enough. My team was herded into a field where we had to resuscitate an Anne Doll. Then it was more running into a room where we had to successfully a fix an ECG machine onto a real patient. The whole exercise finished at around 4:00 am but no one really got to sleep again due to the excitement.
The next all the students woke up exhausted at 7:00am for lectures. My group was scheduled for patient contact and case history examining. This meant that we met five real patients throughout the day that had real problems and out team had to try and diagnosis them with there medical condition. I found this profoundly exciting since it used the skills that we had learned and tried to put them into practise on real people.
The day ended all to soon and the conference was over. In the closing speech David Graven congratulated us all and wished us all the best for the future. To experience Medsim was a true pleasure. The conference might have confirmed some students of medicine and discouraged others but everyone went away with something they will never forget. Friendships were made many will last and I met some of the most amazing people. Personally Medsim inspired me even more to be a doctor, if that was possible and now I am know itching to go to medical school. This short essay is only a fraction of what went on there and I am more than happy to answer questions from students who want to find out more from the course and what it has to offer and for those students who want to study medicine this course in definitely worth it.
