A mental battle against HIV: it’s not as simple as black or white.

I still remember the first time I felt blood infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The patient was lying in front of me after I had drawn a femoral blood sample. I put the needle into the sharps container and looked down to see a dollop of fresh dark blood glistening on my glove. This experience came only one week into my elective in South Africa.</p

A medical clinical skills laboratory: towards a safer future for medical education

Ring! Ring! It is early morning and a final year medical student rushes over to the nurses’ station to answer the phone. Yes. Immediately. Bed four? Reaching the bed, she sees her patient, Stan. Respiratory distress. 25 breaths per minute. A cursory glance at the ECG – Narrow QRS complex. Tachycardia. Supraventricular tachycardia? – and the stethoscope is whisked off its position around the neck. Crackles. With no nurses to help her she rushes off to the treatment room to get supplies to give her patient a dose of adenosine. After finally finding a sharps container, the distraught medical student quickly swipes the antecubital fossa and searches for a vein. Found it! Needle in, push the drug and a wave of relief floods through the medical student. The patient seems to be quieter and sleeping now. Only then does the medical student look at the ECG again: oddly, it’s a flat line. Thankfully, episodes such as this are not common, but fears of making a fatal mistake as a young intern are commonplace. This entire scenario, however, is false. False, in that it took place in a clinical skills laboratory with no risk to any real patients: ‘Stan’ is a patient simulator.</p

A week in 'emergency'

Many medical students aspire to work with non-governmental organisations at some stage in their medical careers. We were not immune to this desire and this led us to Kabul, Afghanistan, to participate in the activities of the Italian NGO Emergency in the summer of 2010.</p