Since I went away on holiday there have been so many great blogs! I have spent the best part of an hour reading them all and am struggling to think of anything I can write that will be anywhere near that good. So you’ll have to bear with me... English was never my best subject at school.

As I look back over 4th year my favourite placement was Paediatrics. I did this at a District General Hospital (DGH) which meant that I lived there for 7 weeks. Although I loved spending time with my flatmates, I felt that if I was living there I might as well make the most of it, so I spent as much time as I could on the wards. I’m not going to bore you with why I liked paediatrics so much; instead I’m going to share with you something I worked out on those evenings that I wish I’d realized earlier in medical school.

Side rooms are now common place on wards, and paediatrics is no exception. I always feel awkward going into them on ward rounds, because, let’s face it, they aren’t particularly spacious and patients usually get more and more nervous the more crowded the room is. Because of this I sometimes hang back and see what else is happening on the ward, and I was doing just this when I noticed an empty room. Now this is a luxury on any ward, let alone on one belonging to the NHS, so imagine my amazement when I rushed past the next day to see no one in it again! Later that day I was sat reading in the doorway of the empty room when I suddenly realized I had been wrong. I allowed my ears to lead me across the room to where I a found cot and in it a crying baby.

Over the next few days I pieced together more about the baby and his story; he had come in due to a medical problem, and though that was now sorted he was remaining in hospital due to social concerns. I had been on the wards for over a week by this point, and had never seen anyone other than nurses go into that room. As much as I wished it was just a coincidence, and that the parents just popped in whilst I was out, my head kept telling me that sadly it probably wasn’t the case. That evening, as I was leaving, the nurses were starting to feed the children on the ward. As I had nothing better to do but read I decided I would help out and took a textbook and the bottle to the side room, where I spent the next couple of hours.

It was here I realized that the one thing that I (as a medical student) could offer this child, indeed any patient, was time. All of the doctors and nurses I saw were so busy doing all of their jobs that they couldn’t possibly be expected to do what I did; and as much as I may want to, I probably won’t have the time to when I’m qualified. Yet as medical students, we often find ourselves with time to kill between clinics or after a surgical list, I urge you to use that time wisely. Having spoken to patients about talking to medical students, it has become clear that one of the reasons they like speaking to us is that more often than not we will give them time to tell their stories, hear their worries or just sit in silence. So although you may sometimes feel like you don’t contribute to the actual care of patients during their stay, think again.

Coming back to the baby in the side room; I sat, read and fed for several more nights during the rest of my placement. As my placement came to an end, and I was leaving the hospital for the last time, I dropped by the ward to say thank you to all the staff who had taught me during my time there. I also wanted to say a quick by to the baby in the side room. Yet through the open door I saw one of the consultants, a nurse and a couple I didn’t recognise...so I decided to give them the time, alone with their child.