Safe in Their Hands

In the last couple of days I've worked with Mental Health nurses, final-year students from several different healthcare professions, first-year student doctors and second-year student doctors - - it's been a busy couple of days!

I don't usually write in detail about the work I do with healthcare professionals but I do want to say a couple of things about it.

I explained to my new groups of first-years that I have a vested interest in them becoming good doctors: when I'm ancient they'll be the consultants!

When I came into the room they were very chatty and lively and I was slightly nervous in case they took a lot of quietening down.

But within a minute they were all focused and getting down to the work: they channelled their liveliness into enthusiasm for the task in hand and worked intelligently and very hard all afternoon. When asked to come up with some ground rules for the session they suggested, for one of them, "Enjoy it but take it seriously" and that was exactly what they did.

I've been very impressed by the students I've worked with over the past couple of days: their intelligence and their attitude and their high level of skill.

It's easy to complain about students - - well I'm jolly well not going to. They were great. Hurrah!