Everyone has a ward personality – from the ward rat who never leaves to the ghost the team have never met. Hopefully you’ll have figured out how much you value you ward time somewhere along the way and know what yours is, but a bigger question needs answering: what is your hog-wards personality? (Worst pun award contender over here thank you)
The ward rat – Hufflepuff
Do you work hard on the wards all the time?
Do you have fantastic references from all your placements?
Are you currently currently carrying a patient’s sticker on your hand for later?
You might just be a Hufflepuff.
Everyone loves you – you’re basically doing intern work but paying to be there! You can write a discharge summary in your sleep, always have a spare pathology slip on hand and are more than happy to do that catheter in the old man who will probably pee on you. You work hard and have the clinical skills to prove it. Needless to say nurses love you.
Likely to end up doing a super fantastic and equally super underpaid specialty. Think GP or geriatrics. Society will crumble without the Hufflepuffs.
The ‘I have a tute’ (every day around lunch time) – Gryffindor
Do you disappear every day around noon for a mysterious ‘tute’?
Do you know every side passage, secret staircase and forbidden nap room in the hospital?
Have you got an instinct for finding free food?
You’re a Gryffindor, friend.
You’ve managed to find a healthy balance between spending enough time on the wards to get all your attendance and logbooks signed off, but still manage to knock off at 3 for a sneaky nap. Everyone thinks you’re alright cos you let them know when there’s free food going – after you’ve taken the lion’s share of course – finders fee.
You’ll get your crap together for exam time with a trusty study group and scrape a good enough mark to get you in to your pathway of choice – ED, because attention spans are hard.
The ghost – Ravenclaw
Do you spend all your time at the hospital library?
Do you spend zero time on wards but somehow still have amazing clinical knowledge?
Are you that smart friend everyone wants to hate but just can’t?
Welcome to Ravenclaw.
Ward work isn’t high enough yield for your high-power brains. You’re more likely to be found in the library finishing off a research paper or writing your next revision lecture (they just WONT STOP asking you to do them). You’re president of some society, and will get the crème de la crème of intern offers.
Your top grades will get you into the highly competitive field you’re set on. Interventional cardiology, ophthalmology, you name it – the sky’s the limit.
The snake. Slytherin (duh)
Do you find ways to get your attendance signed off without actually going?
Do you somehow get the good procedures without ever being there… sometimes by ‘stealing’ them?
Are you an aspiring surgeon?
Like you even need to be told. You’re a Slytherin.
Welcome to the power crew where the vehicle of choice is a Maserati. Or at least it will be one day when you finally make it through to the high-paid job you deserve. For now you’ll settle for snapchatting yourself with the Tesla car at the local shopping centre.
It’s everyone for themselves here so who cares if you bump someone out of theatre? You rock up for exactly as many lectures as are precisely necessary and turn on the charm full bore when it comes to the surgical rotations. You know exactly where you want to be in 10 years, and would probably die if you got sent rurally.
Surgery is the name of the game and nothing will sway you from that path. You know (not entirely wrongly) that everyone envies your conviction.
Eva Matthews Staindl
Year 4 med student