A day in the life of a student doctor

Wow, so it's been one and a half weeks since I've been attached to the hospital here in Ipswich. It's really quite interesting and exicting to finally be able to understand the whole clinical picture from seeing patients and learning practical skills instead of just burying myself in books (not that I've done a lot of that =P). Oh, and there's internet connection in my room after all! Although it's quite bad but I'm not complaining!





In the short time here, I have seen a really jaundiced patient, a patient who's had 10 drug overdoses (!!!), taken lots of bloods! and put cannulas in (I failed several times arrghhhh!). But the proudest and scariest moment was when I had to do CPR on a dying woman! My firm was on call that evening and suddenly my SHO got a fast bleep.. which means someone's on cardiac arrest!! So the whole firm + some nurses dashed out of the ward and ran down this bloody long corridor to another ward at the other end of the hospital.

By the time I got there, I was all sweaty and panting.. I was really impressed at how everyone else was able to remain calm and doing what they had to do to resuscitate this patient with no pulse. This nurse was doing chest compressions for a few mins now and must be getting really tired, then my SHO turn around and asked ME to take over!?

Up to that point, I was just standing at the corner, shocked and observing everything that's going on around me, like watching an emergency case on TV. But alas, I was called back to reality and I had no choice but to step in to this scary world.. I had only learn Basic Life Support a couple of weeks ago and to do this on a real dying patient just scares the hell out of me. So I did what I could barely remember from that short lesson that I had and did the chest compression with all I had, as my heart was pounding like mad. And when I looked at the patient's face to see if there was any reaction, I got another shock as she had only one eye.. as if I'm not frightened enough already.

Thank god after a minute or so, her heart started beating again and I breathed a sigh of relief. I can't imagine how I would feel if the first patient I did this on had not made it... I would feel really guilty and think its all my fault. But now I'm really proud of myself for playing a part in saving someone's life. =D

LOST

Yay, it's the weekend! That means no work and I'm back in Cam.. but boo, I'm also going back to Ipswich tonight =/ I'm gonna bring my laptop there this time. Although there's no internet in my room at least I can play music or watch something to entertain me.


Have been watching the latest season of LOST and it's SO good! So many more questions have popped up and there are so many questions from season 1 that's still not answered. What's the monster? Who are 'the others'? Are the numbers really cursed? What do they mean? And what's in the hatch?...

Season 1 ended with the last question as the cliffhanger, and that's being answered at the moment in season 2.. but there are so many more questions raised.. the cursed numbers add up to 108, and that's the no. of minutes that the button has to be pressed.. does that mean anything? Does pressing the button really saves them or is it just some crazy psychological experiment to see how many times they're going to press it? Where's Walt? Why do the others want Aaron and Walt? Jin actually spoke English?!? There seems to be more survivors than we thought.. I think the scope of this series is so huge, so real yet surreal, that makes it so good.

I've found some interesting stuff on the internet to add to all these mysteries:

• In the new season, Shannon saw Walt drenched in the middle of the jungle whispering something before disappearing. I couldn't decipher what he was saying, but apparently if you play it backwards, he says "Don't press the button, the button's bad." Click here to hear it.

• Michael, Locke and Kate were all involved in car accidents, and all of those involved the same car...

Michael

Locke

Kate

Hmmm...

There's a big philosophical question in the episodes now regarding belief and science. Are you a man of belief (like Locke) or a man of science (like Jack)? Would you press the button just because someone told you that otherwise, you will all die? Or would you not believe that in any way unless there's a logical explanation for it? Which is you?

Personally, I'm more a man of science. Maybe that's why I'm more of a freethinker. But in the most desperate of times, can one really not have something to believe in, to hold on to, and still make it through?

I'm in Ipswich!!!

Just arrived in Ipswich this morning at 9. Had a brief introduction session, had a short talk with the consultant in charge of the medicine attachment, then went on to have a clinical skills session on 12-lead ECG.. all before I had the time to eat braekfast/lunch, settle my accomodation or go to the toilet. Hehe it was quite hectic but had the afternoon basically free.

I've met the HO in my firm, he seems nice and friendly. But I don't know if I'm lucky or unlucky to have a partner student in my firm who's super keen! Oh well, at least I'm not alone.

Oh yeah, apparently the computers here do not allow us to check either hotmail or gmail.. so sorry guys! Can't really reply your mails during the weekdays. I'll keep in touch through this blog. Not sure why the computers here are so crap. On the plus side, my room seems quite nice, living in a 4 room flat thing. Shares a kitchen, a shower and a toilet. Of course, there's no internet connection =(

Alright I'm going off now. Will be going to wards starting from tomorrow. FUN!