Friday, August 12, 2005

Work isn't work when you're having fun

I just can't believe there's only one week of the Medicine posting left, and most of that week is going to be spent worrying about the end-of-posting test. I suppose I might be echoing the opinions of many others when I exclaim that the posting is far far too short to be even the most basic introduction to the intellectual delight and sheer complexity that is Internal Medicine. Oh, give another week and I'd be much happier. Give me two months and I'd do anything you asked of me. Medicine rocks more than Surgery!

Prof Evan Lee is amazing, as usual. It's times like this that I don't regret being posted to NUH, because some of the professors are really wonderful teachers. The only thing I feel sorry about is that I didn't make better use of the time I spent here to learn so much more than I already have. (ok, I'm going to stop the pontificating already) Anyway, Prof Lee has a bizarre sense of humour (yes, don't we all). At first it was all the wicked little barbs about the NKF: "Why don't you want to go for dialysis with the NKF? They've had a change of administration. *wry grin*" Then there was the weird joke about skeletal muscle: "Skeletal muscle, is like Cinderella. You know why? Because no one's interested in it." And just yesterday the MO Dr. J was explaining how a lady had urinary retention and they wanted to refer her to a urologist. Then Prof said, "Why uro? It's not likely to be a mechanical cause right? In the men there's a prostate, but in women the urethra is so short, how to be obstructed? This is more likely a neurological problem, correct? The urologist cannot tell you anything if it's a neurological problem, you know. The neurologist will know where all the wires are running. The urologist can only see the light bulbs." He's insanely funny.

But of course, while on rounds with him one is never left to stand around looking blur for long. I've become sort of the JVP checker on rounds, because Prof keeps asking me to check the JVP of patients, and he says something like, in the days before echocardiography and all the other fancy imaging methods, Prof Chia Boon Lock and people like him were able to look at a person's JVP and diagnose the person, just by noting the pulsations and dominant waveforms. "Nowadays, you ask a cardiologist to look for a JVP, and they might not be able to find it." But it's amazing, all the times I think I don't see a JVP and Prof comes over and shows me exactly where it is, even if it's just the tiniest flicker at one spot on the neck. There's really no replacement for just seeing patients every day, in terms of the amount of experience it adds. But Prof Lee has very high demands on medical students too, expecting us to clerk every new patient that comes in, and to follow patients from the time they are admitted to the time they get discharged, and even "I want you to tell me the occupational histories of all the patients in this ward on Monday, okay?".

I could go on forever about wonderful Prof Lee, but I'll stop because you'd get bored.

I got really annoyed today when I about to alight from the MRT, because this young lady who wanted to get on stood right in front of me, at the direct midpoint of the train doors. And I'm like, hello, can you have the basic decency to let me get out first? They don't paint yellow lines and arrows on the platform for show, or did you just not notice? It's doubly annoying because it was a young girl, about 20 plus, and I would really expect younger people to be better educated in public transport courtesy. Really, nothing gets me more annoyed than idiotic Singaporeans.

And then, when I get down to the bus interchange I have to endure being chased after by those frustratingly ubiquitous people taking surveys for insurance companies or whatnot. And it's like I always get picked on, no idea why. I don't mind taking the survey, okay, but I don't have time to spare on small talk, which is what these insurance agents always end up doing, asking what you're doing now, asking if you are interested in insurance, etc. And I don't bloody want insurance! Pardon the language. I suppose in some minute corner of my heart I feel some empathy for these people, because as medical students we're constantly hanging around sick people trying to invade their convalescence and probe into their private lives, and we also have to put up with people rejecting our attempts to talk to them. But I don't see how talking to insurance agents could possibly make any aspect of the world better.

In other news, I was idly scratching the dorsum of my left foot three days ago, and this entire chunk of skin came out. At first it just felt rather itchy, despite the skin having come off and it being red and raw. Then it started to swell, like alarmingly, and it hurt, like duh. And I was mildly worried that I might get cellulitis (I'm turning into a hypochondriac!), so I put a plaster on it to stop more icky stuff getting into the wound. Now it looks like there's a scab forming over it, and the swelling didn't like spread or anything, so I'm quite relieved. I still can't understand how I could have scratched the skin off, though. And okay, you didn't really need to know about a minor injury like that, but it's been taking up a considerable amount of my time, what with all the worrying. And the pain.

I think I should go to the wards tomorrow, just to make myself more familiar with the patients, otherwise Prof will kill me on Monday.

Avaris / 8/12/2005 07:58:00 PM

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