some just choose to keep their inner asshole in check, and others, well...
let's just say the asshole is all we see of some people.
heh.
-
ANYWAY. i am in the middle of writing my mid-point appraisal, where i reflect upon my learning plan which i wrote at the start of the block (like literally on the day i was supposed to discuss it -_-) and i am feeling super energised and motivated!
i think i can finally say that the bloody jetlag and holiday fever has worn off and I AM BACK IN ACTION PEOPLE! :D i was feeling so unmotivated and like i couldn't be bothered about anything for the past week (all the random crap that happened at the same time didn't help either -_-) and it was such a horrible, horrible place... i was totally being horribly mediocre (and perhaps hovering EXTREMELY closely to being below average) because there was nothing else i could be, even if i wanted to and even if i thought i was trying very hard.
BUT IT IS ALRIGHT NOW because i am starting to leave that place and i am READY to face the world! heheheheh. boy i am glad something in me snapped the night before my midpoint appraisal. lololol.
it was really quite sucky, i was dreading tutorials, and the lunchtime meetings would never end, and they were all on things i had no idea about (how many types of RTA - renal tubular acidosis, not road traffic accidents - are there? 3! what do you do when a patient is hyperkalaemic? it depends on how severely hyperK they are! how do i write a fluid chart up? how do i do a discharge script? how do i order bloods for the next day? HOW DO I MAGICALLY FIND THE CHI NUMBER OF ANY PATIENT VERY EASILY RIGHT NOW?!), but i think that i am FINALLY getting into the groove of things, and i think that i may have had an EXTREMELY wobbly start, but i will be just fine. :)
what i think also helped was when the three of us were talking about how far we've come since we entered med school... actually we were talking about how some 2nd year medical students are unable to take a proper history (HAHA).
(omg trying to do 4 things at once: blog, type up my midpoint appraisal, keep up with my kitchen in cooking mama on facebook, and check my email. HAHAH)
as i was saying, we were talking about how the 2nd year medical students on merv's ward were unable to take a history from patients even though it is now for us a very normal and straightforward thing. i then (as usual) reminisced about how we performed when we were in semester 3/4 and were doing our postings in kuala kubu baru. i still remember how we hesitated so much to approach patients, and how we used to divide the components of the history up so that each of us would take a history in that part. i think it's really cute - now i'm sure we know all seven eight components of a patient history by heart (presenting complaint, history of presenting complaint, past medical history, drug history, family history, systemic enquiry and social history). i used to remember when we had CSU back in IMU and how we would all dread history-taking sessions, especially those during which a lecturer would put us in the hot seat with a simulated patient and make us take part of a history and then give us (constructive - heh) criticism on how we did...
and how self-important we were when we thought during our rural postings that what we did actually kind of mattered... HAHA. now i understand the condescension in the voices of final year medical students when talking about having juniors around on the ward - you have to at least be a 4th year to be of ANY use, darling. LOL.
i still remember when dr lwm made us type our first ever case reports during our 2nd kkb posting - we thought we were already rather senior back then (sem 3 or 4? practically adults in imu bukit jalil, HAHA), and we were mixing up the presenting complaint and history of presenting complaint ("the presenting complaint is ONE sentence telling you why the patient is in the hospital! the history of presenting complaint is when you tell your story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")
i also remember how when i first came over to dundee i was still this uncertain and unconfident person who was stumbling all around patients' beds and knocking over the alcohol bottles attached to their beds when pulling curtains or taking bloods - and who could forget the time i turned beetroot red when i suddenly lost the ability to use a bloody tourniquet!? i did not have my own tourniquet then - i borrowed one from a senior - and after fiddling and fumbling with it for about 20 seconds (essentially an eternity when you're doing it in front of a patient you're supposed to be taking blood from omg), i mumbled something like "oh, i'm sorry, i have to go and ask a senior how to use this" and then promptly exited the curtained area of the patient's bed and felt unbelievably stupid while pretending to be "asking a senior" for 10 seconds before composing myself and then proceeding to take the blood...
hahaha i think i am also very weird in the sense that i think that finally getting hold of your own tourniquet is like a "rite of passage" in med school. i used to marvel at how every 5th year seemed to have their own tourniquet, and all of them were from drug companies, and thought about how i NEVER seemed to have a chance to attend these infamous and legendary and mythical drug company lunches where they gave you all sorts of free stuff INCLUDING TOURNIQUETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 i was further intrigued by the fact that NOBODY told you how to get a tourniquet, and it seemed so much like an exclusive club that i was so desperate to join! i was at one point so bloody desperate for a tourniquet that i walked around the hospital trying to look for one. i went to the phlebotomist suite and they told me that they weren't supposed to give any out to students and i was so crushed. i then got wind that the chemo unit at the oncology ward had quite a few, and i went down to the chemo day unit and THEY GAVE ME BLOODY DISPOSABLE TOURNIQUETS WTF. (i finally procured several by going to the chemo treatment unit HAHAHAHAAHAHAH! TRIUMPH AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!! hmm i should go back for more sometime soon heheheheh)
hahaha i think i am also very weird in the sense that i think that finally getting hold of your own tourniquet is like a "rite of passage" in med school. i used to marvel at how every 5th year seemed to have their own tourniquet, and all of them were from drug companies, and thought about how i NEVER seemed to have a chance to attend these infamous and legendary and mythical drug company lunches where they gave you all sorts of free stuff INCLUDING TOURNIQUETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 i was further intrigued by the fact that NOBODY told you how to get a tourniquet, and it seemed so much like an exclusive club that i was so desperate to join! i was at one point so bloody desperate for a tourniquet that i walked around the hospital trying to look for one. i went to the phlebotomist suite and they told me that they weren't supposed to give any out to students and i was so crushed. i then got wind that the chemo unit at the oncology ward had quite a few, and i went down to the chemo day unit and THEY GAVE ME BLOODY DISPOSABLE TOURNIQUETS WTF. (i finally procured several by going to the chemo treatment unit HAHAHAHAAHAHAH! TRIUMPH AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!! hmm i should go back for more sometime soon heheheheh)
i remember how i first felt a calmness like i was finally being anchored down by the rock of my confidence and belief in my abilities when i was doing my GP block in fourth year. i was in every single day by 0815 and i left at around 1800 - i even went on call every monday until 2300, and was allowed to consult about 60 patients on my own. that was when i knew for the first time that i would be okay.
i started being all jumpy again when i was back on the wards. being jumpy and overly anxious has always been a weakness and it is a very big one when you are going to become a doctor. however, as of late, i find my movements more deliberate, my thoughts less flighty, and i don't bump things over anymore! i guess once you make a fool of yourself enough during OSCEs and practice sessions you will come to the conclusion that slow and steady DOES win the race - it's worse if you try to take blood quickly but not manage and have to try again, than to take the time to make sure that you are going to puncture a vein that really is the best one you can find. i now think i am learning how to just not care about people thinking that i am wasting their time by not attempt to cut corners and just doing the job properly... it's all very...
reassuring. to say the least.
haha i think i have been very incoherent because the words are coming out slower than i am thinking.
aiyah.
a light is at the end of the tunnel, and i think i can see it. i just have to make sure i don't take my eyes off the glow.
:)
