DiSH Trip to Brighton and Sussex Medical School
The Year 8 members of the DiSH magazine News Team recently spent the day at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. The day was organised by Bobbie Farsides, Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics, who was so impressed with our school magazine that she invited us to spend the day touring the medical school facilities there and learning about some of the many elements of a career in medicine.
The day was structured into a series of highly informative workshops, where the pupils were shown many different aspects of the medical profession. From critiquing GPs on their patient interaction, to learning about medical facilities in countries such as Africa. From learning about the organs of the body and how they function, to looking at flies and chicken embryos in the laboratory.
We were also provided with a delicious lunch and had the opportunity to chat with some of the medical school students, who chatted happily with the DiSH team and explained what studying medicine was really like. Our Year 8's engaged confidently with the students and found it inspiring to see how, despite the huge amount of hard work becoming a doctor entails, all of the students where loving every second of the process and couldn't wait to get out there into the working world.
The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the trip and soaked up all the information whole heartedly. Who knows, perhaps our journalists will now consider becoming doctors instead!
Here, some of the pupils tell us about their favourite part of the day...
As I sat in a medical conference room in Brighton and Sussex Medical School, I confess that my thoughts were along the lines of "I'm not that good at science and I'd never be a doctor." I've always wanted to be a journalist, so I'm sorry to say that I was thinking "How does this concern me?"
Despite this I found our session on medicine abroad fascinating and perked up at the mention of working with HIV Positive people in South Africa. I have always been moved by this issue so my interest was immediately provoked.
During the 45 minute talk we were shown a presentation about studying and working abroad. This included pictures of medical students flying all over the world to work in different medical facilities as part of their studies. As countries like Brazil, Ghana and Australia appeard on the screen my mind was instantly cleared of my previous views on medicine and was filled with new thoughts of working around the world helping people much worse off than us. Suddenly, being a doctor seemed much better than I though!
Despite not being good at science, after that presentation I was desperate to know more about how there is so much more to medicine than just working in a local doctors surgery or hospital. There is adventure and bravery, humility, courage and determination to make a difference. Sounds great!
By Ellie Bishop 8PBR
Our favourite part of the trip to Brighton and Sussex Medical School was being given a tour of the labs. We were shown a variety of laboratories where different types of medical research are carried out, including work on deadly viruses! The best lab though had to be the fly lab. The room was so interesting, with shelves of bottles and test tubes and desks covered in giant microscopes.
One of the doctors working in the lab opened up a fridge door to show us shelves packed full of tiny jars, all containing hundreds of flies! He took some of the flies out and we went over to one of the microscopes to have a look at them. The flies were placed on a pad that blew pure carbon dioxide out onto the flies. This temporarily knocked them all unconscious, allowing us to take a closer look at them. They looked like aliens up close! We were shown how to differentiate between male and female flies and the different parts of their bodies. Then - the best bit! We were each given a tube of flies to take home with us! There were about 30 flies in each tube, with a sticky paste at the bottom which was their food. We wrote our names on the side of the tubes and decided to try and name all of our new pets on the bus ride home! We kept them in the Newsroom at school and it was fascinating to watch them over the next week or so as they lay their eggs. Sadly the flies don't live very long so gradually they all passed away but we will never forget our first DiSH pets!
The trip was really fun and interesting and we hope we can go again. We learnt so much and it definitely helped us appreciate our doctors a lot more!
By Olivia Knight and Chloe Holman-Harris 8BNR
My favourite part of the trip was the chicken lab! We met two female doctors who were really nice and gave us a tour of their lab and explained the work they do there. They had a chicken skeleton (real but it had died of natural causes) that they had pieced together. It was really interesting to look at all of its tiny little bones. We then had a look at chicken embryos. It was utterly amazing when we looked at them under the microscope. The younger ones were still a disarray of blobs but the older ones had the beginnings of a spine. It was amazing to see how life begins for these creatures. The doctors had injected dye into the embryos to show up the various parts of the body as it developed. The muscle, bones and cartilage were all different colours which made it easy to identify the various parts. The lab was really interesting, if a little gross!
By Niamh Anderson 8BNR
Everone at DiSH is extremely grateful to Professor Farsides for inviting us to Brighton and Sussex Medical School and taking the time to arrange such a fascinating and fun day. We learnt so much from the trip and hope to return in the future to inspire the minds of more of our pupils. Oh, and get more flies!
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Photography by Isaac Leach 8FGD
