P4R1W2: Snippet of Chch

 

Second week of pre-clinical started with Waitangi Weekend. I was fortunate to have my parents up for the Sunday. We made a trip to Akaroa, which is an hour away from Chch - I felt it was time to get out of the city. Akaroa is a beautifully located town. It was super busy and we struggled to get a carpark around the town area. Moreover, the streets were very narrow - making for an interesting drive through (damn, and we thought we had escaped Chch. Haha!)

We heard that the Wellington centre had a presentation from Brian Mulligan last week (I'm very jealous!!)

Between lecture snack at The Boat Shed

Here's a quick overview of the second preclinical week...

Tuesday: I had a tutorial with others in the same rotation to prep us for our neuro placement. At the beginning of this tutorial each of us done our MRSA swabs... we learnt another piece of anatomy, our 'Natal Cleft' - which is another name for buttock. Next up for the day was a group meeting with my research group and our supervisor - we have three supervisors, one was physically present, another away on study leave and the third (the dean of the School of Physiotherapy) phoned in and we had a very brief chat over speaker phone. In the afternoon us physio students were grouped with the 4th year medical students (whom are also on their second week of orientation in Chch) for a run down on infection control.

Wednesday: We had a lecture on presenting, which we will require for our community paper (PHTY458). There were lots of useful tips and a few humorous stories and strategies thrown in. "I don't have time to go in detail on that now, lets chat about it after the presentation" coupled with 'avoiding said person after the presentation' is the best strategy for avoiding a question whilst sounding professional. Representatives of the CDHB come and spoke about fire and emergency procedures - this included a demonstration of the fire extinguisher. I had a great chat to the hair dresser in the Christchurch Hospital ground floor 'mall' area (seriously, there's down-scaled / miniature mall there... and I did happen to need a hair cut). She was very friendly, and obviously customer service by means of chatting was seen as more important than quickly getting the job done, so I was there for an hour (the cut could have been done in 15min) - I was more than okay with this as I had the whole afternoon free. It occurred to me that her role was a lot more than a hair dresser, and  I got to hear about her experiences and a bit of her life story. I would definitely go back (in addition, it is a very convenient location!!)

On Wednesday I got myself a metro card (for the Chch bus system) and I went to visit a friend at New Brighton Pier / beach! It took me a little bit of time to figure out, but overall a very reliable and helpful service. It cost me $10 for the card and the minimum topup is $10. Each of the yellow and orange buses cost me $2.50 for the first two trips, and the third trip was free. If you're exchanging between two bus lines then you can get a slip to take on to the next bus to continue your journey for free too. We returned to the New Start area which is a shipping container mall built shortly after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Christchurch city centre has a lot of construction underway, it's going to look great once it's all rebuilt. My bus trip was interesting because I missed my 'get off bus stop' and ended up having a 10min run back to the place I was staying. The bus driver was helpful there giving me directions amongst some general Chch chat.

New Brighton Pier

Thursday we had tutorials on ethics, social media, performing patient hand-overs, an in depth discussion on our assessment rubric. In the evening we went to check out the noodle night market.

 

 Friday we made our way back to Nelson!