"I changed a diaper today and fed a newborn. I love paediatrics." ~ Facebook status. Not mine.
I'm not a big fan of paediatrics. In fact, once upon a time, I wanted to do paediatrics. 40 hours of volunteering on the paediatric ward prior to applying to medical school and I knew it was not something I wanted to do...anymore. After spending a 4 week rotation on paediatrics...it's not...awful.
Regardless, that Facebook status made me recall my time on Obstetrics & Gynaecology delivering babies. On our paediatrics rotation, we spend some time on the neonate ward...examining babies and getting little activities signed off our little procedure cards, like changing a diaper and feeding. The thought of examining babies brought back memories of examining babies just as they had popped out of their mommas.
And then, it hit me.
I brought lives into the world. Me!
Birth isn't pretty. This one actually looks pretty good though.
I know I'm about 2 months late on this realisation, but I've reached it nonetheless. I was just suddenly overwhelmed by the emotion of having aided a new life in its entry into the modern world of light, colour, temperature, sounds and food. This did register with me before, but I never really sat down to think about it. At the time, I was merely concerned with getting all my signatures for all my deliveries. I didn't stop to smell the roses, so to speak.
Now that I've found the time to reminisce on those experiences, I'm in as much awe in myself as everyone else.
Here I am...rapidly coming towards the end of my penultimate year of medical school and, you know what? I couldn't feel any less prepared for my final year. I'm sure I've said this before but being in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit this rotation has made me realise this even more. Don't get me wrong. I'm loving my time in SICU and I'm learning so much but I'm also learning just how much I can't remember! And what I do remember, I have much difficulty bringing across verbally. That information would flow ever so smoothly on any writing surface. Gosh.
But graduating from medical school was never meant to be a simple feat to accomplish. Here are some reasons (in no particular order) why:
Overcoming your own drawbacks.
I've had two major personality clashes with this career path: shyness and quietness. Over the past three years, I've been able to conquer the dominating shyness but, as I've never been much of a talker, putting my thoughts across verbally has always been a bit difficult and still poses a problem...a rather large one at that. I've got only one more year to get past that hurdle.
The sheer volume of information.
There are so many aspects of medicine that need to be covered before graduation and these are found within each system of the body. Of course, there's a reason why there are so many clinical specialties in the field. Not a single person can know ALL there is to know in medicine, however, as students, we're expected to know about...90% of ALL there is to know. Actually, I've been told that in this career, you're peak knowledge is in the months before the final FINAL examination...you know, the one that either ends with you becoming Dr. _____ or not.
Learning a new language.
Medicine is a language all by itself. Just the other day one of my closest friends who's studying law said to me, "Do you guys speak and write in code like they do on E.R.?" It sounds like the silliest question since, to me, it's normal everyday language but it's easy (at this point) to forget that it was a language I was trained into. My vocabulary has drastically been expanded, including all sorts of new and exotic words like ipsilateral, phaeochromocytoma and craniopharyngioma down to all sorts of abbreviations. There are words that make you stumble over your own tongue and then there are words like "bleb". Yes, that's actually a medical term. A bleb is exactly what it sounds like. A bleb. Learning medicine is a lot like learning Latin...after all, many terms are based off of Latin words.
Developing an entirely new lifestyle.
Straight up: lots more studying than ever before (cramming is hardly helpful in the long run...and medicine is about having the knowledge for the long run), eating less, sleeping less. Once upon a time, I was a crammer. In a way, I still am. I've been trying to get rid of that terrible habit...but lifelong habits are difficult to just wean off of. But I don't really have a choice. The typical life of a medical student includes very little sleep...admittedly, I refuse to accept this unless I'm on call and so far sleeping 7 hours a night has done me absolutely no harm over the past 4 years. Eating habits don't really change a whole lot until clinical years when your eating times become wonky because ward rounds or clinic go from 9 AM to 2 PM without a lunch break, followed by many other activities which may leave you hungry until you get "lunch" at 5 PM. I've developed a new eating habit to prevent afternoon starvation and it's doing my stomach great justice.
Taking responsibility for lives.
As a student in clinical years, you begin to take responsibility for patients becoming integrated as part of the medical team (albeit the lowest life-form existing on the team, but you're on the team nevertheless). The team's patients are our patients and we're expected to bear responsibility for everything we do and say to our patients.
The vicious circle of learning A.K.A. embarrassment.
"Come to the hospital every day expecting to be embarrassment and embrace it." ~ Kind words from a consultant in Anaesthesiology. Embrace the embarrassment. The learning curve as a medical student is much like a loop, moreso than a curve. You learn something, spew it out confidently and get shot down like it's hunting season. Every now and then, you get a little positive encouragement. Confidence is something that's vital in medical school but not something you can feel on a continuous spectrum. Wouldn't want you getting over-confident and cocky before you even get the big degree, would we?
Losing friends.
If you're friends are true friends, you won't lose them...you'll just spend a lot less time with them and they'll understand and accept that. And if they can't, they just...drift away over time. Even if you can't hang out often, keeping in contact is usually enough to keep a good friendship intact. I feel blessed to still have my secondary school friends with me in my life (I've known some of them for 10 years!) and I've become even closer to one or two of them despite the distance/lack of time. Be sure to keep your true non-med friends! They help you retain your sanity through the stress and hectic lifestyle of the medical career. And of course, you're gonna make new friends throughout your medical career (which starts the moment you enter medical school).
Having less "me" time.
A lot of things are sacrificed in the name of good grades and graduation. Many things you once liked to do eventually get pushed aside. Hobbies and interests are reduced to the bare minimum, if not discarded altogether. Gym time? It's there if you make the time but you won't want to be hanging out in there quite as often. Those TV shows you love watching? Don't expect to catch them on television. Admittedly, I've given myself quite a lot of 'me' time over the past 4 years but with this final year coming, those necessary sacrifices will have to be made. So far, I've already reduced my anime/manga intake drastically. In the very near future, I'm going to have to cut it out almost entirely. Once the ongoing manga series I'm reading are complete, that'll be the end of my manga-reading years. Anime...might still have a chance. Primetime TV? Gonna have to cut down on the number of shows and watch what I miss online when I get a chance (during a lunch break or something maybe?). Oh, and say bye bye to Facebook!
I'll admit that I'm a bit of a hypocrite...I crammed my way through most of medical school but after a certain point, cramming fails you and in the long-term, you look like an idiot because you don't remember anything. I managed to keep up a proper study routine for one semester and it turned out to be the best semester I've had in terms of grades: all A's. Unfortunately, that trend never continued.
I'm planning to make those sacrifices I mentioned by the time my 5th year rolls around, not suddenly of course, because that wouldn't end successfully. As for my new eating regimen...well, I can go through that another time.
If you're not in medicine, you may be thinking that the points I've made apply to you as well. Naturally, they aren't unique to medicine but the experiences themselves are what make medicine as difficult as it is...and they're also what make medicine as wonderful as it is.
Remember last year when I applied to Hong Kong for my elective in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care? It wasn't long before I received an email from them asking me to change or extend my dates since they clash with the wonderful Lunar New Year holidays which I successfully managed to do. But then it wasn't until 2 months and 2 consecutive emails later did I finally get a response about my application processing. They decided that they were full and would not take me. I went through all kinds of trouble and got my Dean's permission and everything for...THAT?!
Needless to say, I was not amused.
Well, the time period for my elective has finally arrived. And, I'm certainly not in Hong Kong. In fact, I'm at home in Barbados doing the elective in the same said specialty. My first week in is nearly through but I must say I've had a fine time so far. Quite happy that I chose to do it again. I've actually spent a lot more time in intensive care (the past three days) with only one day in the operating theatre and I like it there.
Looks nothing like this in Barbados :)
I'm learning so much because I see more diverse cases that I can really read into and come back to apply my knowledge the next day. In anaesthesia, not so much...unless we're talking about the medications used in anaesthesia. Spending time in the surgical intensive care unit exposes me to much much more that I can actually apply later on. I've got good working times as well, ending my days at a timely 4 pm, mostly. It's true that more action happens at night, as everything typically worsens when night comes along, but I don't plan to do any calls this rotation so I'll make do with what I learn during the day. Yup.
It feels so strange to be the only student in a specialty rounding with the team but everyone's quite nice and approachable so I'm surviving. My colleagues in medical school all think I'm a complete weirdo to have chosen to do this as my specialty but some can appreciate the value of what can be learnt in the ICU. I'm enjoying it so far though! So, all in all, I haven't a complaint. :)
I would have loved to spend the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong since I've never done so before but hopefully later on...sometime.
Another year is soon coming to a close...I can't believe how quickly 2011 has whizzed by me...how quickly 2012 approaches, bringing many things, wonderful and not, expected and unexpected, that lay just on the brink of the horizon.
To this day, my mind relives the night of The Music Factory. It truly was too awesome for words.
It's been only a week since I last posted...and I have to admit, my post about The Music Factory was quite brief...but many things have occurred and it has felt like at least 2 weeks have just passed me by. That previous post was hurriedly typed up whilst still under sleepy-mode from the awesomeness of The Music Factory. I like when I create well-written posts that show that even the slightest bit of thought was properly placed into it...which doesn't happen quite often. I'd like to keep it up and keep it thorough and super interesting but it really doesn't always happen. In fact, it's kind of a miracle that I'm finding the time to do this one now...I've been wanting to make a new blog post for the past 3 days.
My 2-week Christmas break is coming up in just a week and half and it doesn't at all feel that way...not with all the stress and annoyances and work occurring on this rotation. I'm currently in my second week of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (commonly known as OBGYN). This rotation in the penultimate year of medical school has high focus on obstetrics, labour and deliveries. I'll be doing it again in my final year which has the broad focus on both obstetrics and gynaecology. As such, my time is often spent on the labour ward of the hospital...taking care of the pregnant ladies who come in labour and seeing them through to their deliveries. After observing a set quota, we, the students, must actually perform a set quota of deliveries in order to pass the clerkship.
Just as travelling has it's peak seasons, so do births. December is within the "baby-boom" season which brought me to my first performed delivery merely 6 days after commencing the clerkship. Wow. It was crazy. Observing and performing a delivery, like many other actions, are two different things. My first was a baby girl...my second, the following day, was a beautiful baby boy. Here in Barbados (I'm not sure how it is overseas) the midwives and nurses run the labour ward so deliveries are performed by a midwife and not a doctor, except in the event of a private patient (since it is a public hospital). I have three more deliveries to see and once I've completed my quota, I don't intend to do these things again. Ever.
Many (not all) of the midwives are the most miserable and moody people one could ever meet in the same room. Too much oestrogen in one room is never a good thing, I've always believed that. The labour ward displays this well. As such, I've come very much to dislike this rotation...a lot...and cannot wait till it comes to an end...next January. Once I have all of my deliveries though, I won't even have to wait so long. :)
Irrespective of the menopausal midwives, I love seeing the joy and relief on a mother's (and father's) face when she sees her baby. If there's anything beautiful about a birth, that is it. Otherwise, it's pretty dirty and anything but gorgeous. Hahaha.
I've been hoping for awhile to make a new vlog...it's been quite a few months since my last but I didn't realise just how time consuming this clerkship would prove to be. I'm full of nothing but exhaustion and impatience, not to mention frustrations, thanks to this rotation.
So, in reality, the majority of the 'many things' that have happened in the past week have been related to Obstetrics & Gynaecology and how I feel my life being sucked away. Apart from that, Christmas is soon here! My little fibre-optic trees are back up for the occasion.
And for those bracing and enduring the examination period...I wish you all the best of luck! Study hard!
I'm not one to get stressed out very often...especially as someone in medical school. I've had very few meltdowns and, to this day, I've never considered any other career options (apparently, I'm the only one who hasn't thought about it this far into the degree!).
Meltdown = rant, rave and cry.
I've done this probably once over the past 3 years. I almost had another one this morning. I think, if I had been at home and not at the hospital, I would've actually had a full on meltdown but it didn't quite happen. I don't often show people that I'm suffering when I am, I guess.
Sometimes, the frustrations just build up. People and their negative energies don't help either. I'm surrounded by it and it feeds my own frustrations. Medical school was never meant to be easy. To this moment, I still have no regrets about my decision to do medicine. I like it and I don't see that ever changing...not if it hasn't changed now that I'm half way through my fourth year of medical school.
Monday morning I opened up my email and saw what I was waiting 4-5 days to see: Package Delivered & Signed for by ___. Score!
Do you know what this means?? It means my package was delivered, of course. What package, you ask? Oh, well, it's just my application to do my fourth year elective in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care at The Chinese University of Hong Kong next January...no big deal. =)
Now, I'm just sitting around waiting for them to process my application and give me a response: accept | decline. I vote they tell me the former. But I'm so excited about my application arriving there quickly and safely because I made it just in time for my deadline! It could've been there much much sooner if the ridiculously slow-working university I attend didn't take 3 months to release my grades to update my transcripts which, by some miracle, I obtained in a week (apparently, the norm is about 4 weeks for a few sheets of paper).
Regardless, everything so far has worked out in my favour. All I need is an acceptance and I'll be booking a ticket for 4 weeks in Hong Kong. That's right. Four weeks. Four. 4. Four weeks. A whole month. In Hong Kong. My favourite place in the whole wide world. Doing something that I know I'll enjoy: Anaesthesia & Intensive Care. I'm actually still relatively surprised that I like it so much.
I started my Anaesthesia & Intensive Care clerkship on Monday. So far it's been a pretty intense compared to the clerkship I was doing before. I spend virtually all my hours of the day in the operating theatre learning about this, that and the other. Too much information than I could possibly digest (which I later attempt to read up on) + topics I'm to go home to read up on to talk about the next day. It usually doesn't work out since I fall asleep as soon as I get home. The days have been long and they've been exhausting on my mind, my back and my feet. I get home late, eat, shower, struggle to read something, fall asleep on the book I'm attempting to read and sleep till the A.M. I really need to readjust to the long days once more...just like when I did my Junior Surgery Clerkship.
The doctor in charge of this clerkship was telling us that we should do at least 2 emergency calls. That means 2 full over night calls. That means 2 calls that will last up to 36 hours. Oh boy...fun!
So, as I have very little free time on my hands, I think it's safe to say that I won't be able to fulfill that month-long challenge that I wanted to do. Maybe on my next clerkship next month?
I'm sure I've been saying this too often lately but I don't blog as much as I'd like to. It's not because I don't have anything to say. My days are often eventful (they've been particularly so over the past 4 weeks) and there are things to say and, even though I have the time, I don't sit down to write a post.
I've just completed my first 4th year clerkship: social and preventative medicine. I really played around with that one...procrastinating on quite a lot till the end and wasn't even able to find time to study with all the rushing I had to do to finish my two presentations and evidence-based medicine project.
On completion of this clerkship, I move on to my next one starting on Monday: Anaesthesia and Intensive Care. It's bound to be a pretty interesting one. I'm back in the operating theatres again...but this time, not for the surgeries. As soon as I discover what my scheduling is like for this next clerkship, I'll decide for sure on challenging myself: posting on my blog at least 3 times a week for 1 month!
Today, as part of my rotation, I had to make site visits to an abattoir and poultry processing plant. As such, I had the glorious opportunity to watch a number of pigs, chickens and a cow be slaughtered for food consumption.
It was, by far, the most disturbing and terrifying thing I've ever had the honour to witness.
And now I know how inhumanely animals are killed for the benefit of the stomachs of men.
First, I saw a cow get shot in a head (apparently it just stuns it), listened to the health inspector talk about what they do when they kill cows, and saw and heard blood gush from the neck of a hanging (upside-down) cow like a waterfall. The most interesting thing I saw was how huge its stomach is with its internally divided 4 stomachs. I don't eat beef and steak and I didn't see most of the process so I wasn't as bothered as with the pigs.
Then, I saw them stun pigs with thousands of volts to the head, slit their throats and hang them upside down before scalding off their hairs and sawing it apart. I found this to be the most disturbing thing because just before they stunned one of the pigs it looked me in the eye with so much fear. I nearly cried when it got killed. It all happened so quickly. ='( Safe to say, I turned my back to that after that but it's incredibly difficult to drown out their screams. I don't ever want to eat ham again. Not that I ate it often anyway.
Chickens don't really see to be that aware of what's coming for them. Though, hanging them upside down and passing them through machines is as bad as it gets.
This clerkship is driving me crazy! I'm tired of all the smelly, dirty, disturbing places!
I haven't been up-keeping this blog as much as I'd like to and every time I look at it, I have all good intentions of changing that but it doesn't quite seem to happen. Just gotta keep the hope burning that, at some point, I'll pick up this blog and post as often as I mean to!
I've started my glorious 4th year, I'm officially a clinical medicine student! Basic medical sciences have been a breeze compared to what I have ahead of me. The challenges are of a different scope and I've got my fingers and toes crossed that I'll continue forward successfully. Currently, I'm on my Social & Preventative Medicine clerkship something that I find to be impeccably boring. There are a lot of published studies and journal articles that I'm supposed to be reading and, if you've ever had to read one then you know, it puts you to sleep. I'm two weeks into it now and so far it hasn't been terrible but it's not good. It's a very slow way to start my clinical years but I think I'd prefer this than to be thrown into the deep end and be expected to know everything just like that! The greatest thing about this rotation is that the hospital doesn't exist in this clerkship...it's all about public health so I'm in polyclinics and, for the most part, visiting sites for health inspection and the such.
As a fourth year student, I no longer have the privilege of saying "I'm not sure. I'm only a third year." As such, at this level, I'm expected to know quite a bit. Honestly, I don't know very much at all. It's horrible but it's something that will eventually be remedied, I'm sure.
There isn't a whole lot to be updated on except...I recently turned 21! Oh, look at that. The big two-one. As everyone likes to put it: I'm legal everywhere around the world. Joy!
My third year has come to a close with the biggest, hardest exam I've had to do so far in life. An Incremental Clinical Exam (I.C.E.) which is like a miniature OSCE-type exam in which my clinical, hands-on, patient interaction skills are tested. That came along with 2 written exams in Surgery and Child Health all in the same week. That was one crazy week.
But I've come away with successful results in my I.C.E. I wish I knew what my exact mark was but seeing the word 'PASS' was relief enough! I've passed all my exams for my courses but I'm still not sure what everything adds up to for my course work because I've had procedure cards, case books and reports to hand in for each specialty clerkship I did over the past three months and they account for quite a handful of my grade. I'll find out on Monday how everything goes but I'm sure I've passed all three 9-credit courses and will successfully move onto my fourth year of medical school.
Fourth year marks the beginning of a new phase of medical school: Phase II of my M.B.B.S. programme. From here, everything I do is clinically based...no more time on the university campus anymore. It's almost depressing since I hadn't particularly liked all the time I've had to spend in the hospital over the past 3 months...it's a little saddening that I have another 3 years to bear with but I'm sure I'll come away with all my successes in hand. I'll miss the days when I had time to do nothing...to a certain extent but I'll enjoy the busy buzz of hospital life...to a certain extent. I try to comfort myself by believing that the hospital life is an...acquired taste. But only time will tell. Fourth year starts in just over a week's time so I sure hope I'll know what our group allocations are and what rotations I'll have over the next year by next week!
Phase I was an experience of it's own. I'm quite happy with the people I met and the lecturers I've had...they've all taught me something different...good or bad. I'm pretty sure Phase II will be faced with hardships that cannot be compared to those of Phase I and I'll make it through as I always do. It's funny, I can look back on the past 3 years and think that all the stuff we went through before was really not as hard as they seemed at the time. I'm sure 4th and 5th year will be the same. Honestly, I can't even believe 3 years have come and gone so quickly. I can still recall my orientation into medical school. Oh, how time flies.
Two weeks ago, my Surgery Clerkship came to an end. Finally. To be honest, 4 weeks of that was quite enough for me. Now I'm on Internal Medicine and I'll admittedly say that 4 weeks isn't possibly enough.
In surgery, we stayed with one firm throughout the clerkship. Medicine isn't the same. We change firms weekly along with having a number of tutorial and clinical skills sessions to attend. Frankly, you don't really get to know people on your team (except maybe the interns, maybe) and you certainly don't get to know the patients on each firm. Medicine has quite a lot of patients with so many different problems and, as we move from one firm to the next, I find it difficult to clerk patients and follow up on them as we're expected for our case books to be handed in at the end of the rotation.
I have my qualms about each of the two clerkships so far. Surgery was wonderful in that it was structured and you knew what would be happening every day but it wasn't so great in the hours and amount of work involved. Medicine is wonderful in that it has shorter hours and much more free time, the atmosphere is more relaxed but it somehow feels to have much less structure to it because I feel like I'm being rushed to learn things in my clinical skills sessions. In fact, I quite hate the clinical skills sessions because the person in charge of them (who's also in charge of the entire clerkship) is so iffy and strange. You'd think he's just being particular but he's so obsessive-compulsive over the things only he knows and ends up focussing on only those things. Hypertensive drugs aren't all there is to life and medicine!
Too often I feel frustrated about the knowledge (more specifically, the lack of it) that I'm receiving. That's not to say that nobody's teaching me things but so many things are being taught that it's not possible to remember it all, so you write them down to go home and read up but when you read, you don't remember. That's how I am. For some reason, the things I manage to study, I cannot manage to recall when I need to. It causes me to become anxious about a lot of things. Sometimes I feel like I can't really be bothered to keep up with the environment I'm now forced to work in due to my anxiety. It's difficult to shave off my fears when I can't answer a question because I can't recall what I read the night before. So now, I have difficulty even getting myself psyched to study at all. This further adds to my frustration and the fact that I don't like my team much doesn't help either.
I've reached the great halfway point of this semester. Another 6 weeks and I'll be facing my first clinical OSCE-type examination. At this point, I've been feeling a lot of negative emotions...lots of upsetting things have happened and many things continue to frustrate me but I'm going to do what I always do: continue working through my difficulties until I come out on top. I'm sure soon enough I can bid these fears good riddance. My lifestyle has changed so much and it's become so unhealthy. Working at the hospital has changed my eating habits entirely. Breakfast is at 6:30 AM (6:10 AM on surgery) and it's only cereal. On call nights (twice a week) leave me eating dinner when I get home after 10:30 PM. On surgery, lunch was any time between 12 and 5 PM but now on medicine its usually around 12 PM. Dinner is whenever I get home so that I can eat home-cooked food at least once a day. Lunch is food I purchase from the hospital cafeteria (which is terrible food that I ate for 4 weeks straight on surgery) or from any of the food places near the hospital (which I can only do now because I have the time on medicine and is better than that hospital cafeteria any day). I don't even get to drink as much water as I need anymore and I've become dehydrated.
All in all, there are a lot of intense adjustments that I need to work myself around. I don't like the hospital life or the hospital environment (though I'm not sure if that's a general feeling or just how I feel about this one). Add all that to my never-ending feeling of wanting to leave Barbados and I'd be a tortured soul. The only thing that saves me from the despair is daydreaming about learning more interesting things at Bastyr University and thinking about where I'd like to go for my electives during my next couple of years of medical school.
If you've read my blog enough and you know me personally, you'll realise that I like to do a lot of daydreaming about the future. To be honest, I really do it to escape the unpleasant reality of the present.
Today, I went to one of the university on-campus housing facilities to pick up some stuff. I had to wait for about an hour for a friend of mine to be free so that I could pick up some other stuff from her place when she got home. So, I didn't bother leaving. I remained parked in front of the halls of residence and tried to do a bit of reading up for surgery. Fun as that was, I couldn't help looking up and watching people go about their business in their buildings. Almost instantly I was warped into a daydream once more...wishing, dreaming, wondering what it must be like to be living away from home...independently, for the most part. I know the day will come when I will undoubtedly have these experiences myself and I tend to look forward to it a lot.
That's not to say that I'm extremely miserable and unhappy here. Surely, I'm not at the brim of the happiness jar...I'd say it's about a 1/3 full. There are the goods and the bads and the happys and the sads, the advantages and the disadvantages to each way of life. I know I'll have the experience of both but I'm a little tired of the repetitiveness of my university.
I don't really think about how I'll escape my labyrinth. I think about having escaped it already. The how isn't an issue, so much so than the when. Regardless, since starting clinical rotations, I've been so busy that these thoughts come to me less and less but the desire to leave will never go away.
My feet hurt. My back hurts. I'm sleepy. I have case notes to write up and present tomorrow, so I'm told. I have stuff to read up on. I'm sleepy.
To summarise my first day in real-life medicine (surgery clerkship):
I attended an occupational health workshop in which I learnt to properly wash my hands.
Due to the workshop ending at 12:30 pm, I had to rush to the hospital to meet with my surgery clerkship coordinator at 1:00 pm. No lunch. No snacks. Nothing since breakfast at 8:00 am.
I met a couple of persons on the surgical team to which I was assigned. I discovered my team is on call.
I removed sutures and observed a urinary catheterisation and IV set up.
I missed the usual dinner time and still had no snacks. No solid food since breakfast at 8:00 am.
I watched and recorded an intern clerk a patient.
I stared at two patient X-ray films and tried to decipher them.
I left the hospital at 9:30 pm, arrived home and ate at 9:50 pm, finally.
Honestly, I'm surprised I even made it through the day with nothing but breakfast and some occasional sips of water. See how important they must be? And I was walking up and down between 3 floors all afternoon too. Between the wards and A & E. Maybe tomorrow, if I find time, I can be more detailed with my thoughts. Anyways, that's the day in a nutshell. I may have said this before: I'm sleepy.
Now, I have to go write up some case from today and head to bed. I'll have to save the fun reads till tomorrow, you know, before post-call ward rounds at 7:30 am.
Happy holidays! I'm wishing you all a great and prosperous new year!
Hello. It's been awhile. I must admit: I've been neglecting this blog somewhat. There have been things that I've been wanting to post about throughout the month but just don't. I'm sorry =(
The good news is that I haven't been neglecting this blog for nothing. I started a much less personal, more informative blog about complementary and alternative medicine. One of the few things I'm ultimately passionate about. I started it on Tumblr and it's been doing relatively well. Then I decided that I'd take it onto a different interface, Wordpress. This was for the convenience of persons unfamiliar Tumblr accounts so that they could leave comments, questions and suggestions while viewing posts and quotes on a much neater website.
Please, take a look at either (according to your preference) and share the knowledge of good health with others!
That's what I've been up to lately. I, personally, think there's nothing better that I can offer you right now than the knowledge of health and healing, naturally.
After a few weeks of looking around and comparing natural health schools, I've come to a decision about the ones I'm looking to apply to in 2013. I've mentioned the Canadian College of Natural Medicine before - this is now my second choice. My first choice is Bastyr University, a natural medicine school that stands at the top of all others. This is where I have high hopes of obtaining my much anticipated Naturopathic Doctor degree.
This month has been very natural medicine oriented for me. I'm determined more than ever to complete my current degree in allopathic medicine and move forward to my naturopathic degree. And, more than that, I want to share the knowledge of natural health to the world...it's nothing short of my largest goal in life: To educate the public about what true healthcare is.
If you know me, you'll know that this is nothing new. Although, if you know me, you probably didn't even know what it was that I'm ultimately working towards. Only after educating myself can I educate others, and so it is my "short" term goals that you may know me to have. I use the term "short" loosely as I'm planning for my naturopathic degree which I apply for in 3 years...for some, this is pretty far off. Should all go well, I could very well have an N.D. added onto my M.B.B.S. in 8 years. I can only plan...after all, many things can happen in that span of time and I will, of course, adapt accordingly.
All this to say one thing: my new year's resolution for 2011 is to continue to share what little knowledge I carry about complementary and alternative medicine with others and to learn what little I can as I continue my studies in medical school.
I've not forgotten you. I could never so easily forsake my blog without any forewarning (though I'm sure I've gone much longer without making an entry). Life has just been...a bore.
This is more or less the set up of the class I'm in. Every day. Minus the American flag. It often feels like I'm in secondary school again. The only upgrade is that I'm in a building with solid walls, roof and floor. I basically spent my final year of secondary school in a broken down shack. Not that I'm complaining.
Often, I wish we could make use of our own lecture theatre on campus but that's a dream that will have no chance for realisation. I'm moving over to the clinical setting next year. That lovely lecture theatre I'd like to have my lectures in? No more of that. But day by day, I drive to campus, sign a sheet of paper with each hour of class I'm in to indicate that I was indeed present because attendance is oh-so-important, you know, just like when we were in primary school.
A daily routine of sleeping, eating, going to class, eating, going to more classes, eating, studying and sleeping once more (with some showers here and there to keep clean) has taken it's toll. I've been doing this for 16 years of my life without a break in between and, you know what? I'm tired of it. Tired of living the same days over and over again. Tired to the point where I've no motivation to pick up a book and study anymore. No motivation. Every opportunity for a break from this cycle is welcome. That's partly why I'm glad I joined the M.S.A...it brings the only difference in my current academic life. Starting January, there'll be more hands-on experience and not-as-much classroom experience and I'm looking forward to that, immensely.
It's no secret that I've been dying to leave the island too. The life I live here is, as stated above, quite routine. A cycle of daily events. There's little else to do in the country and I can't do anything about it. Today, I gave myself a little excitement: I searched for naturopathic schools in Canada. I searched for naturopathic schools in England awhile ago too. I know these two territories are great places for me to obtain the degree I strive for. Search and search and I found the one I'd absolutely love to go to for my ND: Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine.
So, watch out Toronto, I'm making my way over in 4 years' time. Wait for it. My great escape.
I'll admit that I'm not really a big listener when it comes to class these days. For some reason, they bore me and don't keep my interest for more than 30 minutes, if so much. Those that I can listen to for an hour or more are certainly the interesting ones. That said, this semester we're doing a course in human nutrition. In my most honest opinion, all doctors desperately need to know about human nutrition...desperately. So, I'm glad that it's a part of the degree here.
Who better to teach a course about nutrition than a dietitian? Well, I can actually think of more qualified persons for that role. Regardless, this is one of the persons we have teaching the course...the others, know little of nutrition. As previously stated, I'm not a big listener in class and the dietitian is impeccably boring to listen to but, from the little I have attempted to hear, dietitians (or maybe just this one?) are only knowledgeable in diets and food nutrition. You must be wondering, what more do they need to know? Well, I'm certainly being taught about supplementation where needed but the knowledge in this aspect of nutrition is so mightily limited that a biochemist could teach this same information.
What a bore. And a disappointment.
This is why doctors who do happen to know something about supplementation and natural products don't actually know how to properly use/suggest them. Because they're not properly taught. Not even basic general things about supplements like the fact that not all brands are good for everyone. The cheaper 'brands' are incredibly low quality compared to the more costly ones and so they do very little to supplement the body's need. And then there's the fact that one brand that may do well for one person may not do so well for another.
But such is life. This is how doctors and medical students are taught. If they want to learn about all aspects of nutrition in its proper form, they'll probably have to go to a natural medicine school...or make good friends with alternative or complimentary medicine practitioners, though that sort of relationship isn't very common. Why? Because, for some reason, consultants in natural medicine and conventional medicine manage to clash instead of mesh. And I must add, it would actually be rather beneficial for the medical and wider community if everyone got along instead of bashed each other's treatment/management options. That's all I have to say.
You know that saying that goes "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach"? I'm like that...but with life in general. I tend to take on just a little more than I can apparently handle and have this habit of falling just a little bit behind.
Okay, that's not entirely true. I take on as many tasks as I know I can handle. My only problem is that I'm incredibly good at wasting my time. Now, I like to keep really busy so that's why I've been doing all that I've been doing lately and that's perfectly fine. I can easily have very sufficiently efficient days. But if I get tired, the way the stress of last weekend left me, I tend to get rather lazy and fall behind. As a result, I'm behind on work at school despite the fact that I'd really like to read up the necessary information.
I typically spend a grand portion of my days on computers and I've become accustomed to that...to staring at a big 17" screen all day long. But I'm tired of it. A lot of my reading material happens to be online and that's fine...it's printable. But I'm even given chapters on Google Books to read and that's just not very efficient to me but at the same time...I don't want to read them on the computer. So it's like, hmmm, what to do? Somehow, I end up catching up on Naruto or sleeping.
The joys of stress; of being tired; of university.
Medical students are work-oriented individuals; studying is impeccably important. Nobody's dumb in medical school, one has to be smart to get in and then be smart enough to stay. For typical medical students, the importance of work relative to play is pretty much like this:
work > play
I'm perfectly fine with that as long as no one works all the time and cuts out all elements of fun and enjoyment in life. Anyone would go crazy, literally. Work hard, play hard...that way, all the stress from work feels worth it when you take a little break. It's like studying: try studying non-stop for 8 hours. How many people can actually accomplish that? Few. The little breaks help us to sit back and see how much work we've accomplished, to let it settle in a little before we continue.
So, a little fun before the work bares it's ugly fangs is perfectly fine. It's a pity our freshmen can't see that yet. Maybe in a year's time. How boring that they don't understand the importance of play and interaction with fellow medical students.
This week has been so upsetting, frustrating and disappointing for a lot of reasons. I'm already falling behind...the worst thing anyone should have to do is play catch up in med school. I can't wait for the week to conclude. I'll pick up a book and enter 'boring mode'...forgetting the week ever happened.
To think...this week was the only reason for wanting to start the new semester. Bah.
My last (and only) cup of coffee in Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
Jetlag.
I've returned to this place I currently call home. I had an amazing time in China. I miss Hong Kong already.
Classes commence first thing Monday morning. The joys of class and sitting in lectures, of seeing good friends and not paying attention to the lecture; the joys of my typical university life. Returning to the daily rituals and study sessions. Missing friends, old and new, experiencing great things overseas. Looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends at the start of this fresh academic year.
Details of my trip to come once my circadian rhythm has lined up with my current time zone...
