VTS on drug abuse led by group 5

A newly erected fence along the side entrance to the hospital put an early spanner in the works but once the patient car park had been negotiated it was off to the usual start of interesting/challenging patients. Alex talked about a serial requester of home visits who he had seen 8 times since Christmas – this led to a debate about how to deal with such patients, what the underlying problem really was and how it should be dealt with.

Saq kicked off with a rapid run through of illicit drugs, there effects (good and bad), there costs and there ‘street’ names. Olu then proved who had and who hadn’t been listening with a MCQ/AKT style drug quiz.

Cakes (including hot cross buns, jammy dodgers and donuts) were supplied by Charnjit.

Hot Topic was On Licence to Practice and Revalidation which seemed to go down well. For more info GMC website or health care republic website.

The session was then finished off with 3 role plays/CSAs based around real patients/real CSAs. A particular highlight for me was Lizzie (in character as a patient) stating that she was ‘scared she would have to go back to the brown’ – Ahem!

Tom G.

19/03/09

The afternoon began with discussion of a case seen by Nick in paeds concerning a very late presentation of a child with dehydration due to D+V, and whether it is a child protection issue due to neglect.

Whye led a very useful interactive session covering what screening is including the Wilson criteria and refreshed our knowledge of sensitivity and specificity.

Alex then discussed recent research that is soon to be published on ovarian cancer screening, followed by my hot topic on ovarian cancer and how it presents.

After our caffeine and calorie boost kindly provided by Veera we split into small groups and did a number of CSA cases based on screening led by Caron.

Lizzie