@dresmerelda

ID/Micro Academic Doctor & Smiley-faced lover of purple

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Category: Healthy Living

Time (or in reality ‘Me’) Management

November 27, 2017November 27, 2017Leave a comment

I'm pleased to say that I've managed to achieve a fair bit so far in my career while being utterly useless at time. How? Read on...

Rejection and the ‘Science’ of Recovery

August 1, 2017August 1, 2017Leave a comment

Thinking positively isn't always that easy. Here I discuss how I learnt self confidence and coping strategies for a healthier mind.

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This weekend I went to help out at the Science Fair, promoting Biomedical Scientists and other professionals that work in Pathology in hospitals but aren’t necessarily doctors or nurses. Unfortunately, one of the attendees felt unwell so it then became a bit medicy for a while (they were fine so we can grin about the irony!!) 😂 • It was nice to meet the hospital pathology training manager too, who is interested in getting me to chat to girls in school about Women in STEM. 👩🏻‍⚕️👩🏻‍🔬👩🏻‍💻 • Now off to soothe my muscles as on Sunday I did a 10K obstacle course with no training! 💪 • How was your weekend? 👇 • #science #scicomm #womeninscience #womeninmedicine #womeninresearch #steminist #showyourstethoscope #emergencymedicine #doctorslife #microscopy #downthemicroscope #medicalstudent #physician #alwaysadoctor #neveradayoff #biomedicalscience #biomedicalscientist #alliedhealth #healthcareprofessional #sciencefair #motivationmonday #obstaclecourse #warrior #stayhealthy #keepfit #run

“We just didn’t know what was happening- but thankfully, we got my husband to hospital in time and he’s doing well now.” I overheard a patient’s relative talking to one of our Critical Care Outreach nurses at the World Sepsis Day stand as I collected these leaflets. 💕 • We all understand what an infection is. If you have a chest infection, there will be inflammation in your lungs in the area of the infection as your body tries to fight it. You may feel a bit rubbish but that’s about it. 🌈 • In sepsis, your body’s immune system responds abnormally, causing it to damage itself. Your organs may stop working and ultimately it is a killer- 5 people die from sepsis every hour in the UK. We don’t fully understand why the body does this- it is essentially overwhelmed. Any infection- bacterial, viral, fungal, parasitic- in any part of the body- chest, abdomen, bladder etc- can cause sepsis. Early, appropriate treatment (supportive, fluids, early and appropriate antibiotics etc) can save lives though 👩🏻‍⚕️ • Know the signs so you can get help: S-lurred speech or confusion E-xtreme shivering or muscle pain P-assing no urine (in a day) S-evere breathlessness I-t feels like you’re going to die S-kin mottled or discoloured 🚑 • #sepsis #sepsisawareness #science #scicomm #worldsepsisday #survivesepsis #infection #infectiousdisease #microbiology #clinician #intensivecare #criticalcare #emergencymedicine #medic #medicine #physician #medicalstudent #premedstudent #doctorslife #scrubslife #patientcare #patientempowerment #empowerment #stethoscope #sciencesaturday

“Sadly two of the volunteer doctors I worked with died while I was there. Simply because they had micro-tears in their gloves and cuts on their skin. After that, we always double-gloved in different colours, so we could see the holes...” Our infection prevention nurse had worked in Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis. She was teaching us about the protective gear they used. Moreover, she was making us think hard about what equipment we could use when treating a patient with Ebola. 😕 • “Imagine you have a patient with Ebola. How can you do obs on your patient? If you do, you have to leave the equipment in with them and it’s expensive. What about listening to their chest? You can’t put the stethoscope in your ears or you risk take your hood off and exposing yourself. How do you get your blood samples to the outside world for testing if you can’t hand them to your colleagues?” (Answer to the latter includes drop boxes and double bags...!) 😥 • The point is, with haemorrhagic viruses like Ebola, we have to do our best by the patient while also keeping ourselves and everyone else safe too. In our ID unit we have a purpose-built patient room with an ante-chamber and a doffing room. Pictured is me next to the special shower in the doffing area. None of the ‘grey’ water (used shower water) can enter the sewage system remember- it would be a danger to the public- so this shower doesn’t have a drain! Waste-water management is an important part of the work done by many charitable medical projects- including when ‘designing’ refugee camps to minimise cross infection and ensure clean water supplies 👍 • Quite a juxtaposition of terrible viruses and my smiling face, I know(!)- but I am glad that here in the North of the UK we could safely help such a patient if needed, before getting them to a specialist unit. 👩🏻‍⚕️ • #infectiousdisease #scicomm #infection #ebola #virology #viral #virus #microbiology #research #infectionprevention #infectioncontrol #wastewater #water #refugeecamp #medicine #globalhealth #publichealth #globalmedicine #medic #doctorsofinstagram #nurses #pa #patientcare #charity #sci #science #ppe #workwednesday #workstyle

At each new placement I have to work out how to achieve my learning needs to be an independent clinician. I have 3 months in microbiology before I go onto virology which means I need time in the lab, time answering calls and doing stewardship rounds and time in infection prevention. Also hoping for more paeds/NICU experience this time round 👶🏻 • Do you set goals for your own development at work? What are your aims over the next few months? 👇 • [Image: testing urine for the presence of antibiotics. Microbes are put on the Agar and wells are created to put the patient urine in. If the microbes can’t grow, the patient already had antibiotics in their system when the sample was sent to the lab...] 🙄 • #womeninmedicine #womeninscience #womeninresearch #medic #medicine #clinician #science #scicomm #achieveyourgoals #infectiousdisease #lifeoflearning #successful #nurses #antibiotics #antibioticresistance #pa #doctorslife #premed #inthelab #paediatrics #paeds #nicu #babyfever #mondaythoughts #mondaymotivation #infection

All smiles as I come back to my Microbiology placement. Never a true #friyay when you #loveyourjob 🙌😍😁 • How’s your week been? 👇 • #microscope #microbiology #microscopy #science #scicomm #medicine #inthelab #medic #doctorslife #rotation #friends #lovemyjob #research #alwayslearning #neveradullday #nurses #pa #maldi #successful #lifeoflearning #labcoat #premed #slides #gram #happydoctor #womeninscience #womeninmedicine

Getting back into the swing of things. This week I’ve finalised the proof of a case report that has been published and have been working on two others 🙌 • Next up I need to crack on with tidying a review article, a systematic review article and keep up with monitoring sequencing progress. At some point I need to be back in the lab to finish off gels and tidy my lab book. Exciting times ahead as we work out my PhD project. Publishing is important for academia and for medics too. Finally feel like I’m coming into my own clinically a bit too ☺️ The poo room is my life 😂 • #workhard #publication #researchlife #academiclife #doctorsofinstagram #medic #science #scicomm #microbiome #dnaextraction #sequencing #pa #patients #clinicalresearch #clinician #nursing #success #grafting #phd #postgrad #writing #lovemyjob

When things get a bit much, I can apparently just blend into the wall in the ward doctor’s office 😂 • Have been doing a fair bit of hiding recently, sorry folks. I’m still enthusiastic as ever about my job, but sometimes the rest of life takes precedence. I don’t know about you, but I can be the WORST at asking for help- I set quite a high bar for what constitutes a ‘problem.’ I’m not always too wise! Thankfully, I have ace people around me, I enjoy my work and I had an AMAZING weekend with my friends at Secret Cinema’s showing of Romeo and Juliet (think interactive Baz Luhrman fun) 🙌❤️ Sometimes, work-life balance apparently means dropping out of social media for a bit too- bet no one could imagine that was a thing 50 years ago! 😂 • So going forward, I’ve just extracted from my last patient’s last sample and we’re sequencing. I’m about to move hospitals again and focus on microbiology again. Oh, and one of my case reports recently got accepted for publication. Hurrah! ☺️ • Happy Monday everyone 💕 • #mondaythoughts #mondaymotivation #rainydaysandmondays #doctorsofinstagram #doctorslife #science #researchlife #scicomm #gethealthy #worklifebalance #findingbalance #success #workhardplayhard #medicine #medics #inthelab #freshperspective #nursing #selfcare #scientistswhoselfie #pa #premed #microbiome #microbiology #infectiousdisease #lovemyjob #lovemyfriends #lovemyfamily #workstyle #vintage

It’s Candida auris! I was sneaky in the story quiz- I didn’t tell you it was Candida chromogenic agar. But you may have noticed that the colour streak was one continuous sweep across the plate- it just came through as different colours... 🤔 • This type of Candida is a worry- it tends to be very resistant to the usual antifungals. First described in 2009, it was isolated from the ear (Latin: auris) swab of a Japanese patient. It has since caused several healthcare outbreaks. The difficulty is that it’s hard to identify- it requires MALDI (Vitek and API can mis-ID it 😕) and that’s why we now increasingly characterise Candida asap in ITU patients. On call sab plates it’s white like other Candida, but on chromogenic agar it can be purple, beige or pink. 🙃 • So much for this going out early this week! It’s been a busy one- here’s a round up: 🧠 brand new doctors to help out 🧠 • 🧠2 clinics🧠 • 🧠 2 case reports progressing 🧠 • 🧠 2 oncalls (one with phone calls every 2 hours overnight... 🤮) 🧠 • 🧠 rota coordination 🧠 • 🧠 3 ward rounds 🧠 • 🧠 ward/patient management and reviews 🧠 • 🧠 now off to France for a wedding 💕 • Happy #friyay everyone!

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