The placement continues

I am firmly of the belief that if you don't have anything nice to say, then it's as well to keep quiet. That is the main reason why there has been silence in my blogspace for a week - it was a bad week, a hellish week, one that I think might rank as one of my worst weeks ever. Today I am feeling more positive, so I am taking the opportunity to squeeze out a blog post before everything goes wrong again, as it quite possibly will.

I continued with stroke and diabetes last week, and this week there will be more of the same. I am feeling more confident with individual consultations in outpatient and GP clinics, which are generally about weight reduction or type 2 diabetes (or both), although I saw someone this morning (was it only this morning?) with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I have just 21 more working days before this placement is at an end, and I am confident that I will reach the finishing line, although there may not be much blogging activity until May begins.

I have spent some time revising the BDA Conference abstract according to the suggestions provided, have sent it back to them so they can decide whether I need to produce a poster or an oral presentation. I spent Saturday working on that, and then on Sunday I worked on a presentation that I delivered today about a journal article describing a study to determine whether people in hospital who have many illnesses are more likely to have barriers to their access to food at mealtimes. I produced an uninspiring performance talking about an uninspiring article, but at this stage I don't care as long as the relevant Assessment Tool is signed off to say that I did it and it wasn't a disaster.

Job applications have had to wait. I received some useful feedback from one of the jobs I applied for - they are looking for a qualified dietitian rather than waiting for me to qualify (which won't be before July), but suggested a couple of things for future applications. I'll get back to that later, because with the workload from here onwards it will be tough to find the time that a good job application needs. It was a good idea to get a couple out, though, and will definitely make future applications easier.