ward 44

the first thing i noticed when i stepped into the ward was that the curtain of a certain bed was drawn. It caught my eye because it's exactly the same scene when i went to that place when my grandfather passed away. I can't remember if it's the same ward, it might be a different level, but it's the same hospital, same ward layout, same bed. then when i saw the patient there, he looks almost the same as my grandpa. Ok, i might be exaggerating. He doesn't have the same face, but he has a tall built, you can tell that when he was young, he probably was quite well-built but the toll of whatever illness he has has reduced him to skin and bones. He just layed there, not moving with a tube sticking out of his nose. I couldn't help but kept looking in that direction everytime i walked pass that cubicle.

I'm not upset or anything, just have this nostalgic feeling. I just remembered that when my grandpa first went to hospital after he fell down, he was in that bed but prob a cubicle further down the ward. It was then when he started hallucinating and said that there were things on the ceiling. I think that was the last time i had a real conversation with him. I remembered asking him if he knew who i was, he said," Of course i remember you otherwise there'll be something wrong with me!" That night he suddenly collapsed and had to go for a craniotomy for a subdural bleed. It saved his life but he was not the same after the op.

today is the first day of my student-internship programme. I like this new system because it shows us what kind of work we'll be doing as housemen after we graduate. At least now, when we are blur and don't know what to do, we can always call for help from the friendly HOs and MOs. It might sound strange, but when the nurse came to me and told me that bed X needed blood culture and bed Y needed a plug, i felt happy. For once, we are not the bane of the hospital. We have a role and can actually do something.

It's nothing like studying for the exams. I don't think the textbooks can ever prepare us for anything like that. I might hate this kind of life after my nightcalls, but i'm enjoying every moment now.

I'm not a superwoman

i used to think medical school was easy. seriously. haha. that was when i was still young, ignorant and did not realise the importance of having a good foundation. During the first few years, i did not study very much. just enough to get by, only cheong when there was a test or exam. Luckily i managed to scrape through.

i have survived 4.5 years of med school, have 4.5 more months to the FINAL MBBS. 4545! quick buy 4D for tomorrow!

now i finally realise why people say med school is hard. yes, i totally agree, it's super duper hard. you need the memory of a gigantic computer, the skills like tiger woods in the golf course, the compassion of mother theresa, and the ability to not sleep like...hmm...everybody needs to sleep!! it's not even humanely possible! and when you think you have studied enough for a topic, listed all the important topics that you have to know, someone will come and tell you that you need to know more!! argh. when is enough?? you think that by going to the wards from monday to friday, early in the morning till late in the afternoon, go home study your ass off, you can relax a little during the weekends. WRONG! everybody else is at the wards clerking more patients, hospital hopping so that they can see everything! where do they find all the energy?

Conclusion: you need to be not human to survive med school without having a mental breakdown.

Mike the Chicken

10 september 1945 Mike was supposed to die. his owners chopped off his head but he was still moving around as though nothing happened! his owners decided to keep him alive by feeding him through his open esophagus and he was able to live for 18 more months before choking on his mucus and died.

i'm not trying to be mean to medical students but today while i was in the wards, all the medical students looked like headless chickens to me. and i mean it literally. i almost laughed out loud. i was in the crowd of students and prowling the wards for our preys and i suddenly realized i don't know what i'm doing! but yet trying to look all-knowing and intelligent. I think i'm just generalizing, i'm sure everyone of them out there know what they're doing.

Do you think Mike knew that he was headless?

why i wanted to be a doctor

after surviving 4.5 years of medical school, i realized that i've been caught up in the world of books and knowledge. the more i study, the more i forget why i wanted to be a doctor. i realized that the empathy and compassion that i feel for the patient decreases as there is an increase in the knowledge i acquire. why then do we want to know every little bit of detail? Is it really important that we know about the million causes of a rash? Or is it more important to remember about the psychosocial needs of a patient? how many times have we felt better just by stepping into the doctor's office even before the doctor prescribed any medication?

i had a very inspiring tutorial this week. a classmate asked the doctor how is it that he can continue treating HIV patients even though it is a disease largely caused by the patient's sins. the doctor asked him instead, how do you know that the patient with HIV is a bad person? we all know that HIV is spread via unprotected sexual contact with a person with HIV and we are quick to label these people as sinners because they must have visited sex workers or are just plain loose. even then, is a person bad just because he has done wrong in one aspect of his life? is a person good if he's a virgin?

i guess the stigma of HIV started when the infection started appearing in our midst. the earliest group of patients were the homosexual males. HIV is then associated with promiscuity. I am guilty of it myself. I've often thought to myself, the patient got this disease because he visited sex workers even though he has a wife and children, he must be a bad person. I am wrong.

villagers in rural China contracted it because they donated blood.

young girls forced into prostitution because of poverty. their customers refused to use condoms.

22 year old girl got it from her boyfriend.

wife contracted it from her husband and spread it to her newborn.

a chronically ill patient who requires numerous blood transfusions got it from a tainted packet of blood.

a man who tried to stop a girl from committing suicide was bitten by her. She is a known case of it. will the man get infected? what will happen to his wife and kids?

good luck bad luck

my right lower eyelid has been twitching non stop today. Since the id test is around the corner (on friday to be exact), i decided to waste time and google about the significance of this event.

for the females:
1. top left eye lid twitch; means fortune (little or lots).
2. lower left eye twich; you could be crying later.
3. top right eye twitch; FOOD..treats coming your way.
4. lower right eye twitch; always a bad sign.

Bad sign! probably means i'm going to do badly for this test. but well, i survived microbiology, i think i can survive this. *fingers and toes cross until cannot uncross*

for the male, if the upper right eye twiched, it means fortune and vice versa. any lower eye twiching is not a good omen.

the medical people has a name for this condition. Forgot what it is called. They attribute it to stress, lack of sleep and caffeine. It's a completely benign condition. Nothing a little botox can't cure.