Day twenty-six - Friday

Last day at the Belford! Walked in for morning tutorial at 0745, last early morning start... On ABGs, was pretty useful, going back over interpreting blood gases and the physiology behind partial pressures, oygen saturation and delivery. After that was straight down into the board round, which was very full today and quite sober due to some ill patients at the moment. There were no surgical patients on the CAU, so the medical ward round went on for a lot longer than normal as they had to go round and see all their patients. I followed the surgical round, which went through onto Ward 1 to check up on only a few patients.

Once back in the doctors office everyone was properly on it, people were working so hard! Lots of jobs, which I did my best to help out with. Ended up clerking in a surgical patient - taking history, examining, sent bloods, got urine samples, took ECG, ordered x-rays etc. Really good to get through the whole process on one patient, tied up a lot of stuff! Lunch then a child protection teaching seminar at 1230, some pretty gruelling content but important topic to cover. After that we (the elective students) said our goodbyes to the consultants and juniors before leaving the Belford for the last time! Pretty sad times, had a great experience here over the past 4 weeks. Helen had arranged chocolate/cards for the staff on the ward, A&E and theatres from all of us :)

In town I first attempted to track down some Kendal Mint Cake, as a gift to my hosts for making me so welcome in the accomodation. Nevis Sport didn't have any, Field and Trek had one battered bar that had seen better days! Got some in a newsagents next door - amazing that can buy it pretty much anywhere with a vague outdoors theme. Popped over to barbers then back to the house for lunch and brew. 1hr violin, was good fun, sounding better, trying to remember to keep my bowing fingers curved - Mum was having a go at me over Skype for poor technique!

Checked out the maps for Skye - got a plan for the weekend. Scramble tomorrow afternoon on the south of Skye, then camp near Sligachan before doing Glamaig on Sunday morning, then the ferry over to Harris and drive north to Stornoway for Sunday afternoon. Started packing up my room too, sad times. Watched a bit of tv, baked potato then picked up Brett and drove to the Ben Nevis Inn at Achintree for a last night drink. Hadn't been to the bar before, so was keen to check it out. Really nice inside, and the food looked amazing!

Pub at Achintree, at the bottom of the tourist track up the Ben

Feeling refreshed we emerged just as the light was leaving the sky, so we headed over to Corpach where I'd heard there were great views over the loch back towards Fort William. Sure enough we found the marina and we rewarded with fantastic twilight views over the loch towards the town, including the majestic silhouette of the Ben towering above the water to the left.

Corpach marina on the Caledonian Canal

Ben Nevis on the left, Fort William in the middle, with Loch Eil on the right

The marina was quiet, with only the noise of water pouring over the canal locks disturbing the peace. Glad we came out to see the view. Back to the house and then nipped down to Wetherspoons - mainly so I could have a pint by walking home! Sampled the Stag ale, could only manage one of them - very rich, yeasty flavour, felt like drinking a smoother Guinness! Chatted to Brett about Leeds' crazy medical student assessment processes - every med student there gets given an iPhone, with the purpose of filling out 5 mini-cex feedback forms per 5 week placement. This is in addition to other iPhone based feedback forms, as well as written log books, which include multiple skill sign offs like 10x cannulations, as opposed to King's system of just single sign offs. Quite glad we have it like we do at KCL! Would be absolute carnage if King's tried to introduce a similar system - we're bottom of the league tables for student satisfaction as it is, without adding extra meaningless jumping-through-hoop feedback forms!

Arranged a farewell Wetherspoons fry up tomorrow and headed back to the house. Sad to be leaving. Hope I don't get midged too badly on Skye tomorrow - you might have to wait until Sunday for an update on my weekend!