Starting at Starship

Now that I've got through the first week of placement I thought it was about time to go back and fill in the blanks between arriving in Auckland and now. 

As some of you reading may know, the reason I'm in Auckland is because I am doing half of my elective in Paediatric Intensive Care at Starship Children's Health - which is the largest children's hospital in the whole of New Zealand, as well as being the home of the only PICU in the country.

Being the only PICU in New Zealand means that there is always great demand on the facilities available, and not just from the North & South Islands. Starship also provides care for patients from a number of other South Pacific countries. Since I began my attachment I have already met families from Vanuatu and Fiji, which is par for the course here. Also it means that the unit conducts a large number of patient transfers & retrievals, averaging about one every day (either by ambulance, helicopter or plane).

More info about PICU can be found here.

Being an elective student at Starship...

So my time started off with a standard meet & greet with the electives coordinator for the University of Auckland. After being given the information to access the IT/library facilities at the medical school the three of us who had been present were let lose to find our respective departments (PICU/plastic surgery/adult cardiology). Having other students at this initial meeting was good as it was an opportunity to meet other students also out here and have other folks to go out with and see the sights.

As an elective student I am seen as being the equivalent of a Trainee Intern (or T.I.) who is a sixth year medical student who is ward-based and gets paid. I still haven't fathomed out where the equivalent point is in the UK programme, I guess somewhere between fifth year and F1?

Anyway, I got over to PICU and the first thing I found out was that my supervisor is away on annual leave. Now, if this was a placement back in the UK and no-one had thought to provide cover then that would've equaled a free holiday! But being the conscientious ambassador for Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry that I am, I decided I was too heavily invested (not academically, god no, I know f*** all medicine - just financially) in this attachment to slack off.

An hour of mild confusion later and I was greeted by one of the secretaries who in turn introduced me to the duty consultant. A nice chap, he gave me a whistle-stop tour of the unit before taking me to get my ID/door pass sorted out.

With my shiny new badge (and my slightly dirty & pen-marked door pass) in hand I made my way back to the unit. Upon getting back the consultant informed me that they were happy for me to come and go as I pleased, as it was important that I also saw as much of New Zealand as possible during my time.

I also met the other UK student currently on elective at PICU, David. He's from Newcastle medical school by way of Durham. We got on well, talking about various bits and pieces. He gave me a more thorough introduction to the unit, answering the various questions I had. We also made plans to meet up with other elective students that night to go to a comedy club.

My first impressions of the registrars and clinical fellow on PICU were definitely positive. The consultant had introduced me as being from Exeter which they all knew, as all three regs and the fellow had all worked in the UK. One admitted that he had been at the Royal Cornwall Hospital when the first proposals had been put in place for the medical school building - and he told me the old rumour that we were supposed to have loads of luxury stuff like hot tubs. The fellow also told me that his best man was a PCMD graduate and name 'Peninsula' should always be mumbled! Seems like I'll have a good laugh with them all.

By this point I'd been on the unit for about two hours, so with the words of the consultant still ringing in my ears I left to go explore New Zealand.