Day twenty-two - Monday

First thing in the morning I took my car for its MOT to a garage in Inverlochy, a place recommended by my hosts. Bit nervous, as this was the first time I’d taken it for a checkup! I walked into the hospital just after 0830 so missed the board round but went on the surgical ward round. I wasn't the only one missing as Tom had gone off to do the Ring of Steall, an awesome ridge walk up Glen Nevis that I'd done last summer. Nipped up to surgery quickly to see an exotic wound get debrided – was quite gruesome but satisfying to watch, as it looked a lot cleaner after finishing! After returning to the ward I found to my horror that my colleagues had divulged to the junior doctors that I hadn't yet 'got round' to doing an IDL - a discharge letter that that involves trawling through all the patient notes and manually entering all the information into a computer system.... a thankless task but one that needed doing. It is fair to say that I was dropped in it by the others!

30 minutes later I was free and went to see a patient recently admitted; I took a history and did a brief examination. They had an abscess that needed surgical drainage. After presenting the case to one of the doctors, we came up with an action plan and I cannulated, sent off the bloods and explained the situation to them. Seeing as they were going up to theatre later that afternoon I decided to follow them through the whole process. It was a good opportunity to do the complete ‘patient journey’ from admission, clerking, investigations and definitive management.

After nipping upstairs for some lunch I returned for the operation, before which the patient was anaesthetised with a nerve block rather than a general anaesthetic. The op was over fairly quickly and went well - didn’t get to scrub in on this one though as not much to do. It involved de-roofing the abscess and removing the dead tissue/slough to enable it to heal from the bottom upwards, a process known as secondary intention. After that they went off to recovery and discharged back to the ward for observation. Satisfying to have been involved in every step, and to see them come in with a problem, be assessed and managed definitively in the space of a few hours!

The day was over by the time I got out of theatre so I headed over to Inverlochy to pick up my car... It passed! And although I did have to purchase a new part, it was a bulb at the price of £1! Awesome. Back to the house for a quick violin practice and some pasta. Had a moment of realisation when practicing the Bach Double Violin II part that I'd accidently printed off the orchestral violin II part rather than the soloist violin II part - thought it was a bit too straightforward!! Massively overreaching myself, but fun to try the piece and get in under the fingers.

Had to wolf down my pasta in the end as John offered me a tour of the Lochaber mountain rescue team base - an opportunity I wasn't going to miss! We headed over in his van and he gave me a tour of the entire base, awesome! It's a brand new building just north of the hospital, in the middle of an industrial estate type area.

John Macrae, my host, outside the shiny new base!

Our enigmatic clinical lead and team doctor, Brian Tregaskis

The nerve centre of the base

Started off with the meeting room aka 'departure lounge' where the team all assemble following a call out. He took my through the ops room, explaining all the radios and computer tracking systems they can use. Some photos of helicopters on the walls prompted a story of a crash nearby, where they were actually filming a documentary at the same time. Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWUT2iLvZos. Then over into the gym and garage, complete with mini climbing wall - mainly for training purposes.

John in his younger days, far left. Been in the team since age 17!

The kit lockers, always stashed ready to go

Downstairs John took my through his locker and all the equipment he keeps down there, ready to go in case of a call out. Then onto the gear stores, full of rigging equipment, medical supplies, ropes, torches etc. Lastly a quick shifty round the vehicles and poke around the swanky facilities. Great to get the chance to have a look round - struck me as very similar to Kendal MRT's base, albeit much larger.

400m static rope on a spool - one of these is hidden in the bottom of the summit shelter on the Ben, not something most of the punters realise when walking past! Would be able to lower a casualty to the bottom of crag from pretty anywhere on the north face in one lower

Stretchers with wheels, for the tourist path

We got back to the house around 10ish, and I'd heard that Lord of the Rings: Two Towers was on in the doctors accomodation at the hospital so I headed over, on the way picking up some chips/cheese/curry sauce to satisfy my hunger. When in Rome (/Scotland)... Massively stunk out the room, probably to the annoyance of everyone else! Matt provided cakes for deserts. Got filled in on Tom's day too, didn't manage the ridge as once up on the ridge it was blowing a houlie and he couldn't carry on. After the film walked back with Brett, back home by 1am. Great day!