Another term.

So I tried to post this ages ago, but it wouldn"t work, so its not my fault I haven"t blogged in a while...


Ok, I tried yesterday. Its still my fault for being really late. But blog issues is a much better excuse...


I"ve had to go through and re-edit to change my tenses and some dates. How irritating...


So anyway, I"ve been slac- err... busy.

ICCU has come and gone, and though I said it was ok with little hands on, it definitely picked up in the last couple of weeks.

1. Saw an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) being setup on a patient. Basically a heart AND lung bypass, where the blood is taken out from the venous system, oxygenated in a machine then pumped back into the arterial system. It only happens once or twice a year, so we were definitely lucky to see it.

2. Also tried out a night shift. I figured that at some point in my career, I would probably need to do one, so I might as well try it out to see what all the hype was about. Of course, I probably should have slept a bit more during the day...
Summary: Saw a patient with a complete whiteout of the right lung due to a tension haemothorax. 1.6L of blood/clots were drained and then I accompanied that patient to theatre. Was invited to scrub in with the cardiothoracics team and stood at the patients hip while the surgeons pulled out handfuls of blood clots and suctioned what seemed like an endless flow of blood. Total blood/clots removed in theatre: approximately 4.5-5L. Patient improved dramatically and went to the ward a few days later.

Yesterday I started on ED.

That is to say, I would have started had the ED consultant bothered to come in.. Instead, we waited for 40 minutes then I finally found someone to give him a call. He said he wasn"t coming in, and asked for another consultant to give us a tour. Considering the ED is pretty much mostly still under construction, it wasn"t a very long tour. Then we got to see a little baby"s laceration of her brow being glued. I then went home.

I then went to the airport to see off my girlfriend. A sad day indeed, the bad news that my girlfriend has left the country, not to return for 18 weeks. Four and a half months! The good news is that luckily, I will be meeting her in Singapore in around 11 weeks, spending 7 weeks with her, then not seeing her again for about 5 weeks. Everyone else will have to survive without her for 18 weeks.

So she"ll have 7 weeks in Zambia, doing some mixed discipline hospital stuff and some safari stuff, then she flies to Europe to meet up with her sister and tour around for 4 weeks, then to Singapore to meet me and hang around for a week before the both of us go to Cambodia for 6 weeks of paediatrics.
So yes, exciting times ahead, just have to survive this term...

2 months?!?!

2 months since last post? Really?

Damn I"m slack.


Summary:
GP land is awesome. Lots to do, lots of hands on, lots of fun.
ICCU is ok. Not much to do, not much hands on, not too exciting. Did CPR and saved a life though. So I guess that counts for something.

On things to come...

Because everybody else is doing it, I thought I might as well too.

So most people in my year have just found out their rotations (well, "just" being 2 days ago) but I"ve been one of the totally lucky ones who knew over a week ago. I was one of many who was left with a missing term 1 due to the totally fair and perfect algorithm the magical School of Medicine computer uses to allocation rotations. Working fast, I managed to get what I thought was the best of the worst, but others were not so lucky. My heart weeps for the two people who had to do Chronic Condition Self Management, and my Respected Associate who had to do Neurological Rehabilitation.

Outlined below is what I like to call (for the first time) The Grand Plan:

Term 1: Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation
Location: Repatriation General Hospital
Probable job description: Fractured hips, femurs (heads, necks) and knee replacements I should think.
Personal thoughts: Could be hit or miss but its ok, I have company for this term and we"ll make the most of it. *sigh* At least the year can only get better...
Career opportunities: Physiotherapist, Masseuse

Term 2: Urban (Legend) General Practice
Location: My new favourite GP's practice. 
Probable job description: Being Awesome!
Personal thoughts: Very excited about this one, I"ve been having my GP placement here and from previous posts, you can probably tell I enjoy it very much.
Career opportunities: GP, Batman

Term 3: Critical Care Medicine
Location: Flinders Medical Centre Intensive Care Unit
Probable job description: Watching and waiting. Then waiting more. Also watching. 
Personal thoughts: Should get some good physiology and medicine knowledge here. Maybe do some management things.
Career opportunities: Intensive Care Specialist, Dr Robert Chase

Term 4: Emergency Medicine
Location: Flinders Medical Centre Emergency Department
Probable job description: Running around like a headless chicken.
Personal thoughts: If rotation quality was proportional to number of people wanting to do it, this would probably be the best rotation ever. It should hopefully be exciting. Alternatively, this could be so much work I might lose my mind. We"ll see.
Career opportunities: Alcoholic, George Clooney

Term 5: Unconfirmed
Location: Hopefully, Singapore General Hospital
Probable job description: Messenger boy
Personal thoughts: Hopefully I"ll be doing anaesthetics and general surgery.
Career opportunities: National Service, Ending sentences with "la"... la.

Term 6: Cambodia
Location: National Pediatric Hospital
Probable job description: Picking on little kids, stealing pocket money, etc.
Personal thoughts: This one should be fun! I like paediatrics :)
Career opportunities: Paediatrician, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Term 7: Vacation
Location: Asia
Probable job description: Being on holiday
Personal thoughts: This will be a lot of fun, aiming to go to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.
Career opportunities: Dumpling King, Communist

Term 8: General Surgery
Location: Mt Gambier
Probable job description: Generally surgerising. Some surgery on generals?
Personal thoughts: Surgery is the topic I"m least excited about, but who knows, rural general surgery may be more exciting than urban general surgery (which consists of hernia, hernia, laparoscopic cholecystectomy, hernia, colonoscopy, colonoscopy, colonoscopy, colonoscopy, endoscopy, endoscopy AND colonoscopy).
Career opportunities: Obnoxious Pretentious Twat Surgeon

There we go. The plan is out.

So who"s excited?