The lost student in the wards

So here begins the art of medicine. After 2.5 years of studying the science of it, this is the true art.

Like most things in life, it is both fascinating and frightening. It is fascinating because it is frightening, it is frightening because it is fascinating.

We are ending our 3rd week of ward work now. Every morning we leave the house at 7.20am, reach the ward at 7.45am, clerk patients before the MOs do their rounds. Basically if you are lucky patient number #, you will see 4 different white coated people every morning. 1st round say "hi" to the HOs who are there from as early as 6am, then we medical students poke our noses in at about 8am, followed by the MOs, and lastly the big bosses. The doctors in the wards are really helpful, taking into account their ridiculously hectic schedule, they still take the time to give us a few pointers now and then, but i still am a little jittery when approaching the nurses mainly because i still cant differentiate a student nurse, from a staff nurse, from a sister, from a warden, and from the other rainbow coloured bands i let out, it just wont stick it my head, what colour means what, so im still bantai-ing my way crossing my fingers hoping they wont realise it, 7 colours in the rainbow what so 1/7 chance of getting it right.

After clerking ,we have "Case Presentations" with doctors who are amazingly impressive in their field of specialty. Seriously i never expected Seremban to be this good, im really impressed we learn loads from just discussing one case per day =)

At 1pm we officially finish ward work and CP, its lunch time! Lunch means scraping whatever is left at the bottom of the "chap fan" tray, rejoicing when we occasionally find vegetable still there, eat about 20mins, then reading up for TBL till 2pm. 2pm we go for TBL, a more power pack form of PBL because you cannot crap your way through this one. Some days we have CSU, other times we have lectures, basically the day officially ends at 5pm. Once a week we go on call, the "happening time" because we get to do more procedures than the mornings.

Yup yup macam itulah my life for now, and for the next 4weeks or so.
Schedule and lifestyle aside, i am getting used to the life here =)

Of course in the 1st few weeks i was a total blur case, feeling dumber than i've even felt before, but that's just part of the learning here, I've learnt that now =)

There were 2 broad groups of patients i generally tried to avoid at the beginning. The complicated cases and the Chinese. Both for OBVIOUS reasons, the first : i may not be able to put together a diagnosis fo a complicated case, the second: i cant speak Mandarin.

BUT there is progress!!!! I'm proud to announce that i took a FULL history today from an uncle who only spoke Mandarin!!! YES YES YES YES!! ME!! DENISE TAN SUYIN! TOOK A FULL HISTORY IN BAHASA CINA!
waaaah...it felt gooooood, dont need take DNA test to prove my ethnic origin ady. But i owed it all to the uncle, he was so patient with me (ironic cos he is the PATIENT, get the pun?), i told him at the beginning that my Mandarin was worst than elementary, but he said its ok, i had to start somewhere anyway... so nice right!
So i learnt quite a few new words from him, basically relying on common sense and non verbal ques, and as expected the history taking session took well over an hour. But the history taking was so much more than just that, despite the glaring communication gap, he taught so much shared so much and gave so much of himself, i am really touched to have met him, i will never forget this individual and the feelings he stirred within me. My prayers are with him and his family.

We pass their beds everyday, and even though we have been repeatedly reminded so many times it has become cliched, it is true that its so much more than a bored woman lying on her back, than a non compliant man, than an excessively complaining grandmother. This is the art.

When fatigue and sleep deprivation sets in and we see our tiny pay cheque, it would be easy to wonder" does this goverment deserve us?" , but perhaps a better question would be "do our patients deserve us?". I like to believe most of the time, they do.