1. No off for 2 weeks.
Yeah, it is possible for some department when you can accumulate two off days consecutively :) As a houseman, you are entitled to get one off day per week.
In my case, it was during surgical posting. We have this 2 weeks rotation for clinic which cover office hours (Monday to Friday, 8am - 5pm). So, you can either have your off day on Saturday or Sunday for each week. Otherwise, you can request to the team leader to allow you to work the whole 2 weeks and claim your 2 days off later.
Housemanship has flexible schedule though. It was hard to plan for holidays, sometimes.
2. Ate hospital food.
We called this - hospital diet. Trust me, almost 99% of the food are delicious! Usually the kitchen will serve different meals for staffs and patients. Even for patients, there are different food too - depends on each requirement, some may have high potassium diet, low potassium diet, low sugar diet, not to forget... we really care about patients' allergies too :)
Tomyam ayam |
3. Felt like quiting.
Hehe, I felt this way every time I failed to give my best, or unable to save patients, or unable to recall knowledge that I've learned.
Medicine is a continuous learning, every day is a learning process and we encounters lots of new things every second.
Feeling like quiting is normal, just don't quit before you have really tried your best or have a strong back up plan. Find something to look for everyday. :)
4. Did a vacuum dressing.
There are different types of dressing to the wound. Dressing means technique to cover the wound - some simply with normal saline, some with special liquid, some with iodine. For vacuum dressing, we are basically put some negative pressure / put some suction to the wound, with the aim to remove all exudates (layman terms = air bisa?) and encourage growth of new healthy tissue :)
Something like this - source https://www.wjgnet.com/2218-6190/full/v1/i3/13.htm |
5. Failed blood taking x5 on same patient.
It is actually common for patient with difficult blood taking which usually we ended up with taking blood from the artery. I encountered this when I was in medical department, especially when I was doing my solo HO night shift. It was hard to ask for help as others are busy too with their medical wards. T_T
6. Play with newborn in ward.
I enjoyed this especially in O&G department, hehe I called newborns as cookies fresh from oven. :) Their smell is soooo nice, especially after we cleaned them up. After a baby is born, the doctor will need to do basic baby check, to make sure the baby is generally healthy. If the mother has some pregnancy problem, like gestational diabetes mellitus, history of infection, big baby - we eventually will call the paeds team to do the check instead. :)
7. Kena 'buli' senior or MO.
Hmmm, sometimes I don't realised this, until another colleague mentioned to me something like, "Eh, kenapa kau pulak buat benda ni, bukan patutnya XX punya task ke?" Haha.
Bullied by MO, hmmm, not sure.
8. Get to know a supportive MO
There are lots of them to be honest. Get to know them and you will have more opportunity to learn more. :) Every department, I have my favourite MOs whom I found easier to discuss and plan for management as they will ask me back about the reasons behind those management. :)
"Kenapa aku buat macam ni untuk patient ni."
If my answer is "not sure, nanti saya baca part ni." And he/she will give due date to present back to him/her with the answer. Sometimes, even after studying that specific topic, my answer can be wrong. But I love how they were still being patient and explain the reasons.
These kinds of people, may Allah bless.
9. Punch out 4 hours after work.
HAHA.... many times during medical department, especially during postnight shift. You are allowed to go home after 1pm (during that shift system), but, what to do if the morning rounds sometime finished around 11am, and you have lots of task to complete before leaving the ward. Usually what made me stuck there was when I failed to complete my tasks especially the one involving office hours - like sending / receiving fax to / from another tertiary hospital about patients' previous records, requesting urgent radiology appointment, calling another office / klinik kesihatan - where the lunch break usually from 1pm - 2pm plus.
While I still have other pending stuffs to do like settling patients' discharge notes, assisting MO with procedures, urgent blood taking etc. Hahaha.
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Enough with 9 for this post, gonna share the rest in the next one :)
SM, Perak, Malaysia
200609