Grrr… If there’s one thing I hate, it’s sorting stuff out. It could be tidying my room, preparing revision materials or being in charge of organising a night out. Currently my problem is trying to determine what my health check requirements are for entering clinical years at my base hospital. As with the majority of medical schools, there were strict health requirements to fulfil to take up my place on the course, such as a vaccination history, hepatitis immunisation and blood tests. At the start of first year I had my appointment with Occupational Health, got the all-clear and the relevant documentation.
Nearly 2 years later, emails and notices from the med school have been doing the rounds, saying some students still haven’t had the necessary checks and that up to date health checks must be organised before the start of the academic year. Accompanying one mail is the worrying line that a number of people missed up to 5 weeks of the start of term last year, through not having the proper certificates. As far as I could tell though, nowhere was it made apparent if the original clearance from 2006 was sufficient. I emailed the person who had been sending the notices at the medical school and received a prompt reply, telling me I indeed needed to book another appointment!
ARGH! What an arse! It’s a bloody 4-5 hour drive each way to my university, added to which the extortionate petrol costs would mean the trip wouldn’t be cheap either.
Anyway, I called up Occupational Health. What do they say? In fact I don’t need a separate check after all… Hmmm, well now I’m confused - the medical school saying one thing, Occ. Health the opposite. I call the medical school and fortunately get to speak straight away with the person who replied to my email. I explain what Occ. Health told me, and just like that, the representative from the med school states:
“Oh well, I haven’t been in the job long – just go with Occ. Health say.”
This has pissed me off a bit, that the people sending out these emails warning of up to date health checks and threatening missing a large part of my initial clinical training, don’t seem to know what’s going on themselves!!! Nor did they have the good sense to inform me that they were unsure of the answer to my query, but advised me to go ahead and book a (ridiculously inconvenient) appointment anyway. For now I shall go with what Occ. Health told me, meanwhile I have sent an email directly to my base hospital.
Hassle! Grief! Could do without it!
And in other more exciting news, I’m going to see the new Batman movie tomorrow night. Having only seen ‘Batman Begins’ earlier this week, my appetite has been whetted and I’m looking forward to seeing Christian Bale in action. In my opinion he is a quality actor, particularly in the commitment he showed for ‘The Machinist’, losing over four stones of body weight for the role – subsequently to put on another seven stones within six months for Batman. As Patrick Bateman he was horrifically thrilling in ‘American Psycho’ and hopefully these minor assault allegations surrounding him at the moment will be forgotten soon enough! 
