Addenbrooke's With each passing year, Addie's feels less like a hospital and more like an overpriced mall. The reception is straight ahead of you through rotating glass doors. More importantly, take a right to get to the food! Concourse and Food Court On your left is a gift shop - for last minute pressies only, methinks - and The Body Shop next door (for when the Hibiscrub has dried your hands so much that only Cocoa Butter Cream can save them - also v useful under-eye gel for treating bags under your eyes before an eight o'clock teaching session). Some toilets are tucked away down an alley just before the hairdressers, then carry on and the doors open to the hospital corridors and main lifts. If you go a bit through those doors and look right, you'll see the almost hidden car park top-up machines. Back in the Concourse, the supermarket and newsagent are good for snacks, drinks. There's a bank machine, and if you fancy some socks or endearing underwear, then you always have Sock Shop next door. Past Cafe Select and just round the corner, you'll find a little corridor with Barclays bank (and another cash machine), dry-cleaners and a travel agents - and legal advice, might be useful. There is also usually some sort of sale on there, with variously goods of questionable use, sold for 'unbeatable prices'. Carry on down the corridor to leave the hospital and if you walk along past dialysis, the Frank Lee Centre is off to the left, just in case Heading back to Cafe Select, the path it sits on takes you to the Food Court (past Penny's on the right, where you can get mega-deal cheap bus passes for the week). There's a lot of choice - Upper Crust, Pizza, Burger King and Options Restaurant - but its all really expensive except for the free water-cooler! You do get a staff discount at Options Restaurant on sandwiches, hot food and drinks, but it still isn't cheap and the food's grim anyway. Still, it's alright for a quick coffee with your firm - you'll probably want to sit in the nice Staff Only area with windows all along one side. Of course, if you are skiving out of a communication skills session, it might not be the most subtle choice of location... Level 1 - Clinical skills, white coats, ID badges and parking permits Level 1 houses the dungeons/rabbit warrens of the hospital. Legend says, the tunnels can take you anywhere on the hospital site, even to the Clinical School, without ever going outside. Perhaps it's true? Who knows? But you have to ask why so many people go down to Level 1 and so few return? Why did staff vote to put ration packs on the walls? And why is it so damn hot and depressing down there? Still, there's no escaping the fact that sometimes you'll have to go down there... The easiest way is from a door between the Concourse and the Food Court marked "Staff Only". The stairway behind it leads directly to Level 1. The Clinical Skills lab is through the door on the left and is where you go to practice taking blood, cannulation and resuscitation. The corridor on the left goes to the Access Centre (follow the signs), which is where you get your Addie's ID card and sort out parking. Finally, the corridor on the right gives entry to (and exit from?) the rest of Level 1. If you want a nice clean white coat (or if your consultant points out that you ming), good luck trying to find laundry (we don't know, so we can't tell you - what we do know is that it is open 9am-4pm, so you have ample opportunity to find out) The Hospital and Wards Generally, things are well sign-posted and you'll quickly get used to the layout. Here are a few pointers to get you started. Outpatients The long corridor to the left leads first to A&E or, if you follow it round to the right then left, you eventually get to the Out-Patients department, where you have the various clinics, a newsagents and the excellent WRVS cafe which sells pretty cheap tea, cakes, sandwiches and canned drinks. Radiology and Berridge Room As you walk along the long corridor towards Out-Patients, about half way along that corridor (after the lifts for Neurology), have a look for a picture of some trees on the left wall. While not especially interesting in themselves, they nicely mark where you need to turn right to get to the Berridge Room. Continue along this corridor towards oncology, and take the next corridor on the right. The lift and stairs you come to lead to the Radiology Dept. The Berridge Room is on Level 5 (and there's something useful on level 4 - not sure what). There are regular teaching sessions there and radiographs you can look at whenever it's not in use. Rosie Maternity and the Breast Screening Centre From the hairdressers, take the corridor on the right. Follow it past pharmacy and then take a left to the Rosie Maternity Unit (Reception is on the floor below you) and Breast Screening Centre.   The Main Lifts, Most Wards and Medical Admissions Back at the doors by the hairdressers, the main lifts (which go up to Level 10) are directly in front of you. The directory on the wall details what is where; theatres are only one floor up, so take the stairs! Passed the lifts are some snack machines and the Paediatrics wards (C and D wards on other levels) and, after these, you come to another long corridor. Just before the end are some lifts (only to levels 1 to 6) on the left and a door to some stairs on the right. Take these if you want any of the F or G wards; seminar rooms are by the stairs on each level. At the very end of the corridor is the Medical Admissions Unit (MAU) where you find patients waiting to be admitted. So this is where you go if your medicine firm is on call. A word of warning: don't lose the patients' notes, it doesn't go down too well. Lastly, if instead of entering MAU, you turn left, you get to R2 (rheumatology etc) and the Lewin Rehabilitation Ward where some of you will be centred for Medicine for the Elderly and also for the Rehab week in your Phase II neurology attachment. Giving Blood It's not just consultants that are after your blood. Given the choice, I'd much prefer to give it to the Blood Donor Centre on Addie's site. Ask at the hospital reception for details. It's probably best to make an appointment, but you can just pop in. It doesn't take long and, after you've been on the wards a while, you'll realise just how important it is. While you're at it, why not think about putting yourself on the register for bone marrow donation too? They recruit at least once a year (usually in the first term).

Comments or questions about the website to: Nima Ghadiri