So its been nearly two weeks since I last blogged... My bad.
But seriously, its my blog, meaning that in theory, I can blog whenever I damn well want to and should not have people bugging me about not blogging right?
Unfortunately not, it would seem.
Anyway.
So 2 weeks of paediatrics down, and I still love playing with children and distracting them and receiving that little look of gratefulness from the doctor. It almost makes me feel like there is a point to me sitting in the corner of a little clinic room, sneakily asking questions to the mother/father when the doctor needs to go out to find something or clumsily poking and prodding a small child when the doctor asks me to perform an examination or take blood pressures.
Children have such small arms, yet they manage to make so much noise with them. Curious isn"t it?
The past week has been a lot of fun, with another week in clinics.
I sat in on the Child Assessment Team ( or the CAT team if you wanted to make use of the silly way in which people like to make use of silly repetition in such acronymerised names, such as like in ATM machine or BAT team - Brain Attack Team for you people not in the business.) which seemed interesting. Interesting in that it seemed like the most expensive play session you could organise with your child without actually investing in diamonds or a circus. 6-8 specialists sitting in to watch a child play with toys and draw.
I also sat in on a less expensive version in which the child was assessed by the speech therapist, physiotherapist and occupational therapist.
I was lucky to sit in on a Renal clinic as well, which happens only once a month at FMC. The consultant was a hilarious man with a very relaxed attitude and amusing manner. His questions to me were straightforward and naturally difficult (especially to me, as I discovered that I had managed to forget just about everything about the kidneys...) but was quite willing to teach me when there was time.
The most exciting thing about the past week is that my daddy was here!
Lots of good home made food (which were I less lazy, I could also make, but the laziness usually pulls me to quicker, just as delicious meals...) as well as a restocking of my freezer. I should be set if the Australian Army decide to come over for dinner.
This weekend was quite a bit of fun as well as Friday afternoon started off with a feast put together by my dad, and continued with the celebration of the birthday of a Britannian/Prydein colleague in true boozer style starting at some bar and leading on to some indie bands, most notably Flat One which stars a current intern of Flinders. Very inspiring and really ruins my excuse of not having time to do anything...
This was very enjoyable but the late nights and moderate alcohol consumption made the next day quite troublesome. Pancakes (with bacon, caramelised bananas and real maple syrup) on Sunday was thoroughly enjoyable as I didn"t even need to go anywhere as another fellow colleague (this one from Canadia) brought everything over to my house to make!
Definitely fun as we poor sAdelaide residers were graced with the presence of a very much loved colleague who usually resides where the general human population is probably outmatched by the population of horses and livestock.
So yes, a thoroughly enjoyable weekend to top off a quite enjoyable week!
This week: Inpatients!
Ward rounds and history taking seems to be on the menu.
Which reminds me, what should I make for dinner?
Showing posts with label history taking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history taking. Show all posts
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Paediatrics
Looks like I"m falling back into my poor blogging habits... Gotta get on top of that.
So I"ve just started paediatrics.
First day down and I"m quite liking the fact that paediatrics is so organised.
Surgery was a poorly organised and poorly maintained rotation in my opinion. Sure, the coordinator is very nice, but as stated by another surgeon "JW needs to learn to email and stop living in the 70s".
We"ve got plenty of teaching sessions in paediatrics and the first day was buffed with introduction to history taking and examination in the paediatric patient, as well as community health. Both lectures were quite interesting and very relevant.
Anyway, I should probably go get ready. I don"t want to be late on my second day!
So I"ve just started paediatrics.
First day down and I"m quite liking the fact that paediatrics is so organised.
Surgery was a poorly organised and poorly maintained rotation in my opinion. Sure, the coordinator is very nice, but as stated by another surgeon "JW needs to learn to email and stop living in the 70s".
We"ve got plenty of teaching sessions in paediatrics and the first day was buffed with introduction to history taking and examination in the paediatric patient, as well as community health. Both lectures were quite interesting and very relevant.
Anyway, I should probably go get ready. I don"t want to be late on my second day!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Great Exceptations
I typed the title of this post last night intending to blog about stuff, instead I ended up changing it and leaving the below post. Now I forget why I wanted to use this title.
On new housemates:
My unit is now a bustling suburban bedroom mini-community. From the first year aquaculture/marine biology students to the first year health science student to the German exchange psychology student, we"ve got it all! A friendly bunch indeed, mostly away from home for their first time, getting used to not having the roving parental eye of control over them.
On a failure of a Monday:
For the second time this rotation, a certain consultant has been away and unable to give us our eagerly awaited lecture. This is getting to be quite annoying, as they get their lecture times in advance by quite a few weeks, certainly enough to tell someone if a conference happens to be on that week...
On free food:
Ahh, O-week. With the new students coming in, the great annual welcome begins, with BBQ lunches, dinners, morning teas, afternoon teas, ice cream... All free! All it requires is a few omitted truths or small lies, and you"re free to munch away! Alternatively, you can do what I do and make use of the most important piece of information I learned on the wards: Look confident. As long as I look as if I should definitely be doing this and that it would be pure stupidity on anyone else"s part if they were to interrupt and question me about this, I can do (or eat!) just about anything.
On the gym and associated activities:
The annual free week from the gym, a time to stock up on exercise and activity to make up for the lack of these over the remainder of the year... I don"t know where I was going with this topic. All I really needed to say was that I"ve been going to the gym for the last week and now I will stop due to outrageous membership prices. Outrageous.
On surgeries and complications:
So being on the Surgery rotation, it would be expected that I should be going into theatre and seeing some interesting surgeries. Yesterday was one of those days with a laparascopic anterior resection. The initial preparation of detaching peritoneum (sigmoid mesocolon?) from the colon went smoothly enough, until the surgeon started exploring higher and managed to nick the splenic artery. This obviously wasn"t quite too big a problem as the surgeon deadpanned "Oh. No no no, don"t do that." and proceeded to clamp off the artery and asked for sutures, prodding on the nurse with an equally unexcited "Sutures, sutures, we have a bleeder." As I then expected the surgeon to cut open the abdomen due to the complication (which we were trying to avoid due to the patient being quite old and having an open surgery would make recovery a lot longer), I was very impressed with what happened next. The surgeon proceeded to suture laparascopically, which looked very difficult (much like trying to have dinner using 50cm cutlery) but it was done and the surgery was continued with no further complications. The patient looked well and in good spirits this morning. Wow.
On the musculoskeletal workshop:
Now, I don"t expect this to reach anyone that this will matter to, as I don"t believe I know of anyone placed locally in the course that actually reads this blog... I could be wrong of course, but judging by the lack of hits and the rare comments only by fellow bloggers in other areas, I"m probably quite accurate.
We had a musculoskeletal workshop yesterday, lead by a doctor who I believe gave us a spine examination session during GP week last year. It was brilliant. The notes given would have been worth their weight in gold (and a significant weight indeed) had they been given to us last year for when we were doing musculoskeletal clinical skills last year, but for now, they are just incredibly useful. These notes cover the various musculoskeletal and rheumatological examinations and include a DVD with clinical examinations. We"ve also been given an almost definite OSCE station, so that"s a good start too. For anyone who has yet to sign up or go and was considering skipping it, don"t, it"s well worth the four hours it takes (unless you"re a physio, then you know everything anyway...) and a lot of good practice too.
On expectations:
I"m not sure what I wanted to relate regarding this topic. It probably had something about the need to be in two places at once, but the consultant this week (the proper consultant, not the evil substitute one, mentioned previously... or not, that seemed to have been on a power trip as the main one was on holiday) was cordial, in fact I would say almost soft drink.
We had theatre this morning (a simple stoma reversal) followed by a tutorial on evaluation and causes of post-operative fever and presenting a surgical history. The consultant was very good actually, pushing for knowledge but not criticising the lack of it. I"m quite sure that I am seen as a moron as after a few seconds of silence and possibly a look of fear in my eyes, the consultant proceeded to answer the question given moments earlier. This consultant is also the first one to have given a set system for presenting a surgical history to a surgeon. In a nutshell (Oh help! I"m in a nutshell!): keep it simple. They don"t want to know all the "crap"* physicians care about, they just want to operate, "because honestly, its a lot of fun"*. So they just want "a history, not a bedtime story."*
All in all, an interesting week and it"s not even Friday yet!
Oh darn. SMS from Intern says Ward Rounds will start at 7:30am tomorrow. Not a good start.
* Indicates actual words/quotes from the consultant. Wonderful!
On new housemates:
My unit is now a bustling suburban bedroom mini-community. From the first year aquaculture/marine biology students to the first year health science student to the German exchange psychology student, we"ve got it all! A friendly bunch indeed, mostly away from home for their first time, getting used to not having the roving parental eye of control over them.
On a failure of a Monday:
For the second time this rotation, a certain consultant has been away and unable to give us our eagerly awaited lecture. This is getting to be quite annoying, as they get their lecture times in advance by quite a few weeks, certainly enough to tell someone if a conference happens to be on that week...
On free food:
Ahh, O-week. With the new students coming in, the great annual welcome begins, with BBQ lunches, dinners, morning teas, afternoon teas, ice cream... All free! All it requires is a few omitted truths or small lies, and you"re free to munch away! Alternatively, you can do what I do and make use of the most important piece of information I learned on the wards: Look confident. As long as I look as if I should definitely be doing this and that it would be pure stupidity on anyone else"s part if they were to interrupt and question me about this, I can do (or eat!) just about anything.
On the gym and associated activities:
The annual free week from the gym, a time to stock up on exercise and activity to make up for the lack of these over the remainder of the year... I don"t know where I was going with this topic. All I really needed to say was that I"ve been going to the gym for the last week and now I will stop due to outrageous membership prices. Outrageous.
On surgeries and complications:
So being on the Surgery rotation, it would be expected that I should be going into theatre and seeing some interesting surgeries. Yesterday was one of those days with a laparascopic anterior resection. The initial preparation of detaching peritoneum (sigmoid mesocolon?) from the colon went smoothly enough, until the surgeon started exploring higher and managed to nick the splenic artery. This obviously wasn"t quite too big a problem as the surgeon deadpanned "Oh. No no no, don"t do that." and proceeded to clamp off the artery and asked for sutures, prodding on the nurse with an equally unexcited "Sutures, sutures, we have a bleeder." As I then expected the surgeon to cut open the abdomen due to the complication (which we were trying to avoid due to the patient being quite old and having an open surgery would make recovery a lot longer), I was very impressed with what happened next. The surgeon proceeded to suture laparascopically, which looked very difficult (much like trying to have dinner using 50cm cutlery) but it was done and the surgery was continued with no further complications. The patient looked well and in good spirits this morning. Wow.
On the musculoskeletal workshop:
Now, I don"t expect this to reach anyone that this will matter to, as I don"t believe I know of anyone placed locally in the course that actually reads this blog... I could be wrong of course, but judging by the lack of hits and the rare comments only by fellow bloggers in other areas, I"m probably quite accurate.
We had a musculoskeletal workshop yesterday, lead by a doctor who I believe gave us a spine examination session during GP week last year. It was brilliant. The notes given would have been worth their weight in gold (and a significant weight indeed) had they been given to us last year for when we were doing musculoskeletal clinical skills last year, but for now, they are just incredibly useful. These notes cover the various musculoskeletal and rheumatological examinations and include a DVD with clinical examinations. We"ve also been given an almost definite OSCE station, so that"s a good start too. For anyone who has yet to sign up or go and was considering skipping it, don"t, it"s well worth the four hours it takes (unless you"re a physio, then you know everything anyway...) and a lot of good practice too.
On expectations:
I"m not sure what I wanted to relate regarding this topic. It probably had something about the need to be in two places at once, but the consultant this week (the proper consultant, not the evil substitute one, mentioned previously... or not, that seemed to have been on a power trip as the main one was on holiday) was cordial, in fact I would say almost soft drink.
We had theatre this morning (a simple stoma reversal) followed by a tutorial on evaluation and causes of post-operative fever and presenting a surgical history. The consultant was very good actually, pushing for knowledge but not criticising the lack of it. I"m quite sure that I am seen as a moron as after a few seconds of silence and possibly a look of fear in my eyes, the consultant proceeded to answer the question given moments earlier. This consultant is also the first one to have given a set system for presenting a surgical history to a surgeon. In a nutshell (Oh help! I"m in a nutshell!): keep it simple. They don"t want to know all the "crap"* physicians care about, they just want to operate, "because honestly, its a lot of fun"*. So they just want "a history, not a bedtime story."*
All in all, an interesting week and it"s not even Friday yet!
Oh darn. SMS from Intern says Ward Rounds will start at 7:30am tomorrow. Not a good start.
* Indicates actual words/quotes from the consultant. Wonderful!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
It"s been a long day
Ah, Matchbox Twenty...
Where was I?
Oh yes, blogging. Just to switch things up, lets Tarantino this a bit. I"m going to start with the end of this story:
I had a nap. This morning. Before lunch.
Now lets flash back to the beginning:
-fzztwhirkdsafh;gssssssooooooooooooooooo-
Waking up at while its dark is not good.
Ward rounds was uneventful, though there were some quite interesting patients (with one a possible CoC subject!), the fact that it was bloody early kind of toned down my interest.
We then attended a presentation by our very own registrar, who was amusingly anxious about the whole thing, though us students didn"t really mind, we were kind of more interested in the breakfast that was provided...
A very impressive breakfast spread it was, with sweet pastries, mini quiches, a large variety of fruits and what I"m going to call "slices of closed pizza" (otherwise known as toasted focaccia).
Afterwards I went to have a chat with one of the interesting patients, taking a history and performing a basic physical examination of all systems. As a random point of interest which came up during our conversation, we found out (despite the over 40 year difference in ages as well as residence in different states) that we had previously shared the same GP! Small world indeed...
Such a long day, in fact, I"m quite tired...
-ooooooooooooooooossssssg;hfasdkrihwtzzf-
Where was I?
Oh yes, blogging. Just to switch things up, lets Tarantino this a bit. I"m going to start with the end of this story:
I had a nap. This morning. Before lunch.
Now lets flash back to the beginning:
-fzztwhirkdsafh;gssssssooooooooooooooooo-
Waking up at while its dark is not good.
Ward rounds was uneventful, though there were some quite interesting patients (with one a possible CoC subject!), the fact that it was bloody early kind of toned down my interest.
We then attended a presentation by our very own registrar, who was amusingly anxious about the whole thing, though us students didn"t really mind, we were kind of more interested in the breakfast that was provided...
A very impressive breakfast spread it was, with sweet pastries, mini quiches, a large variety of fruits and what I"m going to call "slices of closed pizza" (otherwise known as toasted focaccia).
Afterwards I went to have a chat with one of the interesting patients, taking a history and performing a basic physical examination of all systems. As a random point of interest which came up during our conversation, we found out (despite the over 40 year difference in ages as well as residence in different states) that we had previously shared the same GP! Small world indeed...
Such a long day, in fact, I"m quite tired...
-ooooooooooooooooossssssg;hfasdkrihwtzzf-
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Still trying...
Third post.
Trial Two: The important bits.
Exciting news, well, sort of I guess.
We"ve been learning about taking patient histories and to help this, we"ve been encouraged to wander the wards and ask nurses for patients we can take practice histories from.
Found an incredible patient today, a nice rare heart transplant patient.
Due to the usual confidentiality issues, I won"t go into it that much, but suffice to say, the patient was an absolute champion and very inspiring as to all life had thrown at them and they had still managed to get up and continue.
On a totally unrelated topic, my laptop finally arrived, which will help a lot in the lectures I"ll be going through. Its a decent 13.3inch one, so small enough to carry around with the power to last a few years :)
Trial Two: The important bits.
Exciting news, well, sort of I guess.
We"ve been learning about taking patient histories and to help this, we"ve been encouraged to wander the wards and ask nurses for patients we can take practice histories from.
Found an incredible patient today, a nice rare heart transplant patient.
Due to the usual confidentiality issues, I won"t go into it that much, but suffice to say, the patient was an absolute champion and very inspiring as to all life had thrown at them and they had still managed to get up and continue.
On a totally unrelated topic, my laptop finally arrived, which will help a lot in the lectures I"ll be going through. Its a decent 13.3inch one, so small enough to carry around with the power to last a few years :)
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