| Friday, 25 April 2008 |
| the pillars of medicine |
Thank god for the end of the writers' strike. Today, I spent the afternoon watching the first new episodes of the dramas 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Brothers & Sisters' to be produced in months. And I've got to say, the producers of these series are back in a vengeance. The quality of this week's episodes are some of the best seen this season, especially so for 'Grey's'. This week's episode was just a right dose of humour and drama, and sorta correlates with what we, as medical students, are currently going through right now. I loved it.
"The 4 pillars of medicine are anatomy, physiology, pathology and the art of conning patients" - Anon
And speaking of what we are going through right now, the second week of CSFC has finally come to an end, and we end it off with the release of the results of our year 2 finals. So I'm officially a M3 student now! (Sigh!) I must admit I was very disillusioned with what I was doing when I was shadowing some big shot Orthopaedics surgeon in clinics yesterday. Just seeing the way he treats his patients made me feel like whatever we are doing now is of absolutely NO use at all.
All those stuff about communicating with the patient, of feeling empathy with patients, of treating them as respectable human beings, really seem like crap taught to us to ensure that the faculty gets its butt covered when members of the public complain about the crudeness of the doctors being produced by the local University.
I guess each and everyone of us medical students has to start thinking about what kind of doctor you want to end up being. What kind of doctor are you really determined to be? You see all those really good doctors in television programmes, who are compassionate, yet professional at the same time, and you keep telling yourself that you really want to end up like them. But the truth is, that kind of person only exists in television programmes. Doctors in the real world rarely come in that perfect sort of balance. They are either too professional, or too compassionate, with absolutely no in betweens.
Everyday in CSFC, I question the kind of doctor, the kind of person I want to be, because everyday in clinics, you see how other people act, you see how your mentors and tutors behave, you see how your peers and colleagues change, and you see the wide spectrum of patients present in society and its kinda hard not to be influenced and changed by all that you soak in.
There are times where I really want to try to be compassionate and nice to my patients, but there are also times where I tell myself that its much easier to be strictly professional and emotionless when dealing with them. To be involved or detached, where do you draw the line?
I met this nice little sweet old lady in the clinics. She was staying in my base ward and I regret not getting to know her earlier. I've been going back and forth to talk to her since Tuesday, and today, she got discharged. I was lucky to catch her while she was preparing to leave and coincidentally, I was leaving the hospital while she left it as well. She was a lovely patient, and the first in what is hopefully going to be a long list of favourite patients to come. I hope she'll keep her health at tip top condition, and I hope to never ever have to see her in the hospital again, but some part of me will miss her, and hopes to see her in a non hospital setting or something.
I have another three years to figure out what kind of doctor I want to be. Whatever it is, I hope not to be an overly lousy one.Labels: brothers and sisters, clinics, grey's anatomy, quotes |
posted by voldemort33 @ 20:55  |
|
|
|
| Saturday, 19 April 2008 |
| 1st week of clinicals |
So the first week of clinicals has come and gone. I think everyone has their own opinion of how good ,(or bad) it was. I think its infinitely better than the days in lecture halls, struggling to stay awake during boring lectures. But at the same time, its so much more challenging and tiring compared to the foundation years. First of all, we have much longer hours. Secondly, we no longer have the structured lessons and system of the past. And lastly, we no longer get to see all the friends and people that we used to be able to spend time with everyday.
The whole uncertainty that being in clinics bring is quite daunting. I suppose everyone feels kinda out of loop of what exactly we should do and how about we should be doing it. I mean, everyone knows we are in the wards to learn how to do the basics of taking a history and eventually, to learn how to do a basic physical exam. We know that we should be learning to talk to patients, to get over our initial fear of interacting with patients. So what do many of us try to do? Keep clerking patients. But then again, that isn't easy because it takes lots of luck to find a patient that is willing to entertain you, and also lots of guts to approach that patient in the first place.
So at the end of the day, everyone goes home exhausted and frustrated. Frustrated that we seem to be going absolutely nowhere with the clerking and history taking and the physical examination. But I guess, we can't rush such things and can't force us to make the transition from mugger to rugger in like 5 days? There's still lots of stuff to iron out really, and I guess we'll never actually ever give up trying and probably only achieve that total transition when we have gone on in like 10 years time to become some successful doctor in some hopefully good hospital or clinic.
Talking to patients is really tough. I realize that all the previous fantasies and images of me being a doctor with natural empathy and the ability to communicate with patients are absolutely rubbish. I sometimes don't know what to say to patients. Its so hard really to balance the feeling and the thinking, and to be honest, right now, I'm so busy thinking that I'm not capable of doing much feeling at all.
But then again, some patients just HAVE the ability to make you feel. Take the little old lady I met yesterday in the wards and the other old lady I met during NHS today. I can't talk about them here, but lets just say that I can't help but feel totally helpless and useless when I think about them. I think its going to the wards and the grassroots that makes you realize that there is very very little that Medicine alone can help achieve. Medicine without the Social and Political will to help results in half-hearted attempts to change people's lives really. So really, you can't change anything by being in Medicine, and if you are in this job to change lives, you shouldn't hope too much. But if you are in this to help in whatever way's possible, then yes, you're in for the right reasons.Labels: clinics, school, society, soul |
| posted by voldemort33 @ 22:39 |
|
|
|
| Monday, 14 April 2008 |
| time to stand up and grow up |
'Come grow old with me, for the best is yet to be..." - Robert Browning
So today marks the start of my clinical skills foundation course. To those few non-medical students friends of mine who still read this long forsaken blog, this means that I've finally started taking that big leap forward into the dark and twisty world of clinical medicine. The next 7 weeks will be an extensive (& long-drawn) orientation to the often confusing and exhausting life in the clinics. No doubt I'll probably have lots more to complain, moan and whine about in the upcoming years as I enter what is arguably the most important stage of my medical career, the sheer exhilaration of being involved in clinical work more than justifies the intense craziness that clinical life would bring.
With regards to my feelings about the clinical years, I must say that as of now, I am rather excited about the upcoming lessons. I know many of my peers expressed fear of the upcoming big transition into clinical life - they are all freaked out by the sheer amount of work to do, the amount of facts and skills to learn, the need to interact with patients, and the need to survive the politics of the hospital hierarchy. I strangely do not share much of their concerns at all, except maybe the politics part. But then again, my mind doesn't register things the way normal people would, so perhaps it isn't that strange for me not to feel any fear at all.
In the upcoming weeks, I would be involved in clerking patients, taking their histories and learning how to do basic physical examinations on patients. I would also start to learn the basics of various other clinical skills and procedures, such as venepuncture, intubations, catheterisations, intramuscular injections, intravenous drips etc. All I can say is that I'm ready for whatever comes my way; whether NUH and the patients are ready for me or not... now that's altogether a totally different question.
Anybody interested in allowing me to practice blood pressure taking (and various other clinical skills) on them should contact me ASAP via either SMS or emails. If you don't already have my contact information, then you really shouldn't even consider volunteering yourself for such potentially devastating torture. Hehe.Labels: clinics, quotes, school |
| posted by voldemort33 @ 20:12 |
|
|
|
|
|
