today’s return journey (so far) to londres on the train has been uneventful. snow was somewhat patchy en route, unlike england’s south-west. woke up at half four but then decided to take the later train as there was no travel alert on the BBC website.

this was my first visit to guy’s hospital, one of the oldest teaching hospitals in london. when i first came to england the medical school of guy’s hospital had merged with st. thomas’, and now it’s one big conglomerate with king’s college. my first impression was the hospital/med school looked like it was in a movie set depicting gotham (if you see the old redbrick viaduct, together with the overhead footbridge going to london bridge station as well as the ongoing renovation of the station, you’d agree). and it was fantastic to see, slap bang at the hospital gates, a McDonald’s.

i was attending a workshop at the hodgkin building, named after thomas hodgkin, the 19th century pathologist who first described a form of lymphoma that had the Reed-Sternberg cell (sometimes called the Hodgkin cell) in it. the building housed a formidable specimen museum, which included prosected cadavers which had been plastinated, similar to, albeit less glamourised, those found in von hagens‘ body worlds exhibition. photography is strictly not allowed, so as to preserve the dignity of those who had donated their bodies to medical science. didn’t find any of these scary (of course not) but the spiral staircase coming down two mezzanine floors didn’t do me any good! i have to say the collection here is more than that at my professional college. wait, the RCPath virtually has no specimens (even the hunterian at the RCS has an impressive collection). d’oh!

the air in the gordon museum had this slightly mouldy/old text book smell about it, whilst i listened to fine lectures given by the country’s authority on the subject of prostatic tissue pathology. being there reminded me of the days in sixth form when i was applying to go to med school. i remembered how difficult it was to get into a london school (in the days when all the schools were autonomous institutions under the university of london) as an overseas student. i probably wouldn’t have been too happy with all the commuting one does every day (to those who havestudied/are studying in london, just how do you do it!). i like grand old institutions, the way how you can get lost in the maze that leads to a lecture theatre or lab (LSE is like that). i was educated in a more modern setting when i was in the north east, and character probably isn’t something the architects had in mind when they designed my med school. after shifting close to over fifty pieces of glass (there’s more where that came from when i come in to work come monday), we had our buffet sandwich lunch, surrounded by pots of brain parts immersed in formalin. saw a few familiar faces and played catch-up, as one does in these circumstances, before being herded back to the last few lectures.

i love going away for courses/study days like these, as you find that you never stop learning even though you think you know enough to get the job done. it is a given that you must keep up with current knowledge to be able to function in the medical field, but one can get too caught up with the rigmarole of the daily grind that one needs to stop have a breather (i know i haven’t been to good with keeping up with my reading, despite my journal subscription!).

as a footnote, i’d like to add that i couldn’t help but play tourist this morning. this was taken before the workshop and is a poor tribute to the sheepwoman. without the pout.