Back from the Association of Medical Humanities conference in Truro – I arrived home at 1.30 a.m., way past my usual bedtime. The conference closed a bit earlier than I expected, so I shelved my original plan to stay an extra night and travel home in a leisurely fashion during the daylight. Unfortunately the bus to the railway station was late, and I ended up starting my seven-and-a-half hour train journey at a quarter to five in the evening. Add to that the hour and a quarter to get home from the station at this end…..it was actually beginning to get light by the time I finally got to bed. I am too old for this!!
The conference, however, was a really interesting experience and a chance to meet a great diversity of folk from all over the world. Conferences are often huge and rather lonely events: no-one talks to you, and if you don’t already know some of the delegates, you end up not talking to anybody for days. At Truro, by contrast, everyone talked to everyone else all the time. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera so the only photograph I have is stuck on my mobile phone.
We presented our paper on setting up the Art & Anatomy SSCs to a small and polite audience in a session which also included presentations by Christine Borland and Lucy Lyons, so we were in distinguished company.
The highlight of the conference, for me, was the screening of David Cotterell’s film “The Green Room”, made during his residency with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Afghanistan. The film was made in the Field Hospital as the surgical staff wait for an influx of wounded soldiers. Apparently calm & detached, it is charged with emotion and layers of meaning. Superficially, one might think that nothing much is happening, just slow, almost choreographed movements to a soundtrack synthesised from unintelligible conversations and the sound of helicopter rotor blades. In fact the suspense is palpable; the action is occurring elsewhere – either just out of shot or just out of focus at the back of the tent. People move with deliberation, enhanced by the video technique: they are alert, anxious even, but prepared for tasks to which they have become accustomed. At one moment, suddenly, someone laughs soundlessly and you realise that the tension has been released by a joke you can’t hear. And, with unbearable poignancy, when a casualty does arrive and is wheeled to the back of the operating theatre, the surgical team still waiting for their patient turn slowly round to look, torn between concern for the new arrival and the anticipation of their own task. The claustrophic setting is not contextualised geographically or politically within the film (although this was done in detail during David Cotterell’s lecture to the conference). There is no overt ethical judgement: we are asked to examine our own feelings about this particular situation and about warfare in general, and to reflect upon the paradox of healing in the context of conflict.
http://www.cotterrell.com
The essays referred to on the last post (cue bugle music) have arrived and been marked. The “portfolios” have been inspected and included in the assessment of “use of learning resources”. The last block has started, and the two new students are, I hope, up and running with their preliminary research – neuroanatomy imaging, and the work of Gunther von Hagens. And hoorah! with three and a bit weeks to go, my University internet access has arrived. Better late than never (I wonder how long it lasts for?)
And the best news is that our life model is better and back at work.
A small disaster has struck (can you have such a thing as a small disaster?). Having waited all day for two essays to be emailed to me, and beginning to think uncharitable thoughts about the non-emailers, I have discovered that the server I still use occasionally for medical-type emails has developed a glitch. The error message reads:
“The xxxx e-mail service is temporarily unavailable. This may be due to a brief inter-server commmunication problem or a restart of services following system maintenance or upgrade.” [ha ha… brief??? it’s been off all day]
“The team will investigate the cause of this disruption and post an update if the outage [outage – good grief] is likely to be lengthy. Apologies for any inconvenience. Further information may be available on the email update page.” [it isn’t] “Please click the back button of your browser to return to the previous page and try again in a few minutes.”
So, an assessment of the use of illustration in educating the public about obesity, and a study of the work of Jenny Savile in relation to Body Dysmorphic Disorder, are floating about in the ether. Fortunately I have a plan B, and another email address, but it is a bit irritating, to say the least.
It’s now 10p.m., and still perfectly light outside, but a strange pink mist has descended. I presume the rational explanation has something to do with a sudden drop in temperature, but have been watching Dr. Who on the iPlayer, and fear the worst. An alien invasion is undoubtedly imminent, and I haven’t marked those essays.
Week 8 of 12.
The second block is about to finish, and the essays will be handed in on Friday. Having marked them, I will also have the portfolios to assess, under the general heading “use of learning resources”. The marking proforma has one or two idiosyncracies: everything is marked on a scale from 1 to 7, including Attendance. A mark of 6 is in the “Honours” bracket, and 7 earns “Distinction”. One could fantasise about a student earning Honours for attendance, despite being hopeless at everything else. Fortunately for the future of the Health Service, one or two other things are also taken into account (clinical competence, for example).
Our poor life model, who had a racking cough last week, was too ill to attend this week. So, I modelled for a rather small class – although you will be relieved to know that I kept most of my clothes on. As a consequence I am now totally exhausted, and seriously thinking of going to bed despite the glorious weather.
We’re now just over half way through the SSC block, and it’s difficult to remember a time when I wasn’t commuting weekly to the Medical School. The journey is judged nicely – no need to get up too early; feed chickens, feed cats, water tomatoes, check email & set off with an hour to spare (time allotted for lunch). Arrive at 1.31 and pay for parking permit – this is valid for 4 hours and as parking is free after 5.30 and the penalty for not paying up to that time is horrendous, I don’t fancy running the risk of a large fine for the sake of a a couple of minutes…..it has been known to happen, and stories circulate of the death and destruction visited upon transgressors.
Then into the Medical School for a cup of tea at the refreshment bar and thence to the tutorials. Half an hour or so spare for reading, or another cup of tea, and then into the Life Class.
This week, the School has been setting up for something variously referred to as OSSIs or OSCIs. My reading of John le Carré novels suggested that Ossis were East Germans, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but somehow this didn’t seem to be the right interpretation of the acronyms. Turns out that it’s what used to be known as “Clinicals”, that is, examinations of students’ clinical acumen using real patients. Most of these “patients” are old hands, almost professionals, with a vast understanding of their medical conditions and a long experience of Clinicals. They are often happy to drop broad hints about their diagnosis & treatment, although I did hear of one who replied persistently along the lines of “that’s for you to find out”. The student endured this for an hour, and failed the exam.
Anyway, as a result of the OSSIs, all the examination couches had been removed from the room we use for life classes. So: nowhere for the poor model to lie down. But they had left us the chairs, so that was all right.
