I still can’t believe they let us graduate! The past few weeks have passed by in a blur of GMC numbers and parties, Hepatitis Documentation and lapsed flats. With every Defence Union badge that was added to the steadily increasing pile, I was conscious that it was drawing closer to the time when I would have to bid farewell to Miss. Daisy Dashwood and instead embrace the more wholesome, less hedonistic lifestyle of Dr. Daisy Dashwood, MBChB. Like any other PRHO, I was slightly apprehensive about the whole doctoring lark. Suddenly things like SIGN Guidelines started to take on a whole new significance. I began to see them as more than just section 8e of the Case Studies as it dawned on me that they were actually applicable to real life.

I’ll be starting at the Royal Scottish Hospital, just outside Drumnadrochit in a matter of weeks. My mother advised me to do my Medical post first, as ‘that way, you’ll be able to help the surgeons when you come to that, dear – they don’t know any medicine’. So, basically, the chronology of my rotations is down to the fact that my mother is a die-hard physician.

I was totally psyched about starting work though. Finally having real, live patients! I thought I’d had enough practice dealing with D and V, emotional heartache and non-prescription drugs (and that was just my compadres). What did freak me out slightly was the whole drugs side of it. Not that I thought I would be magnetically sucked into a downward spiral of subversive substance abuse by the end of week one; I was more concerned about the myriad of possible ADRs and unpleasant side-effects that could precipitate. I might have to sellotape the BNF to myself….. I don’t do White Coats. The only time I’ve worn one in the past year was for the OSCE. Possibly beneficial in serving as a storage space for spare venflons and covering the morning toothpaste marks, they are not up there on my list of desirable accessories. For a start, they add at least 10lb to your frame. Add that to the Trust Photo and you’re lucky to come away resembling the right gender.

I had almost moved out of my old Flat. The spiders and other forms of primitive life had also been duly dispatched to sunnier climes and I just had to give it the old once over with a mop. If I could find the mop……..

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