THE BLACK BAG

Bristol Medical School

Summer term Ed., 2023

The University of Bristol Medical Students’ Magazine

Est. 1937

Editor-in-Chief:

Anna Andrieu

Contributors:

Adewale Kukoyi, Aurora Cettato de Sabata

Charlotte Wood

Diyora Ilkhamovoca

Dolores Faucett Hill

Jordan Lin

Max Gerard

Molly Van der Heiden

Phoebe Barry

Wiktoriya Kotynska

Illustrations: Habib Ullah, Zin Htut

Editors: Safia Hussein, Victoria Frugone Clarke, Kate Rainsford

Editorial

Dear lovely readers,

I would like to introduce our new Editor-in-Chief Anna Andrieu who will be taking over the black bag for the 23/24 year. I have so loved being editor for the last 4 years and hope I have continued the legacy of this very old newspaper well. My highlights have been weekly zoom meetingsduringCOVID-19whichgave mesuch light-hearted relief, editingone ofourwriter’s interviews with Matt Hancock as well as reading many lovely and interesting articles submitted by people who loved to write and wrote for us many times but also those from people who gave it a go and ended up producing some amazing stuff. I know we all laugh at art in medicine and other points in the medical school when we have had to write a poem or produce a painting, but I really do think that creative thinking is needed in medicine, especially in the NHS at the moment. Thus, I beg you to continue a little creativity throughout medical school, not only to develop your thinking but it will definitely keep you sane! I have written my final poem for the black bag below and it’s about this couple I met during my 18-week CMOP placement at Southmead. I think I expected geriatric care to be very depressing however I found a lot of wisdom and hilarity within it. Perhaps writing lots of these poems helped me process some of the not so fun bits of medicine and helped me slow down and reflect. This is definitely another hint to write for us! Thank you so much for reading the magazine over the last 4 years and for contributing.

M.van

der Heiden

Hello everyone,

I am delighted to take over as the Editor-in-Chief over the next year, and I welcome you all to a wonderfully long edition of The Black Bag, unrestricted by printing. The Black Bag is back, but I cannot say for sure if it will be better than ever, as it fully depends on my ghost writer, who is a tiny little mouse I keep chained to my stethoscope. (I promise he is not maltreated, I let him off once a year for CLIC) Over the next year, my main aim is to phase out all content which is unproductive and ‘fun’, and instead replace it with GMC regulation reminders and AI generated literature reviews for optimum performance. Jk. In a world where we do minimum wage unskilled jobs and robots paint and write poetry, we must try to not become obsolete and cross our fingers that GP practice does not evolve to a system similar to the McDonald's selfservice machines. It seems the world is on fire, but luckily the lecture theatre for Trevor Thompson's second year urinary EC is not (two years in a row - what are the chances?). As for introducing myself, I can normally be spotted in my natural habitat lurking at the back of E29 at around 9:20 every morning, biding my time so I can make the most disruptive late entrance to my lectures as possible. I’d like to make it clear this is not because I don’t care about my degree, but because I really really want to make friends with the cleaners who have their biscuit break in the corridor outside at the same time every morning. Any advice would be appreciated. Overall, I am very proud of the work produced by what may be our largest ever team of contributors. I hope you enjoy what we have put together, a great year lies ahead.

A. Andrieu

In sickness

I met this old couple on one of the wards, A few months ago

Amongst the caterwauling hospital bed cords. She was very ill; dementia’s death is slow

I stepped into her room, Almost aghast

At how different it was The stark bright contrast She was sat up, dressed and hair brushed, Far more neatly than the usual rush

He sat next to her neatly folded bed. A newspaper in hand and classic FM Bounced around. And I felt I had been misled, By the mayhem of love

He had made them bring in a bed It was neatly parked next to hers He stayed overnight since she’d been in All of the care, he’d taken on his chin

We wrote in the notes that we had no doubt, He was acting in her best interests, As he denied package of care Saying he could do it on his own back.

I often wonder how they are getting on. Whether they are still together, or she has gone Whether he’s alone in their big 4 storey house Or are they still having 5pm G+Ts by the greenhouse.

M. Van der Heiden