Saturday, September 16, 2006
Rounds, brown and sun-down
Ward round this morning was very interesting indeed, so much so that not once during the round did i harbour any regrets of wrenching myself from the bedclothes at 7 on a cold Saturday morning, after, might I add, a late night in the ED and ward.
Ward rounds can oftentime be deadly boring, with us med students trailing after consultants with not the slightest inkling which patients you're seeing and why they're in hospital and what is being done for them. So it ends up degenerating into a mind-numbing physical routine: enter room, smile beguilingly at patient, draw curtain, blank out for the 2 full minutes the consultant talks to patient, realise with a start he's finished talking, return to earth, move on to next room and repeat the entire cycle. sometimes to ease the boredom, you distract yourself with funny recollections of medical faux pas committed by your group mates or mentally grouse about the imminent state of blobiness you're heading towards. During such rounds, I often think of us as seaweed drifting along with the current or if you prefer a medical perspective, like interleukins, given no name or clearly defined purpose, only a number. Medical students have only one duty on the wards, u see: To be the ultimate fly plastered to the wall. And obviously not even for decorative purposes. Unobtrusive is the goal to be attained. The better you blend in, the better things run. Sad, I know, but true.
Having said that, you do sometimes by some stroke of luck chance upon a good round, like the one I had this morning, whereby the team acknowledges your presence and tries to include you and whereby the consultant and reg feed you intermittently with bits and pieces of useful information to try to nourish that sparse field of knowledge you currently possess. You know its a good round when at the end of it you feel this sense of satisfaction. You have some vague idea what the patients are suffering from and how they are to be managed and possess at least a shaky confidence that you might be able to do something constructive for similar patients. And the icing of the cake of a good ward round? Good looking members of the team, of course. Or charming patients can do the trick too. Oh, the shallowness of mankind! Disgraceful, I know, but I feel no remorse. =) What it'll be like when I'm a consultant in the future and no one comes to the ward round...
In other news worth mentioning, the weather was splendid today. Absolutely flawless and spectacular-- cool wind, cloudless skies and sunlight! Lots and lots of it. Really, it left me no other choice but to nip down to St Kilda beach for the afternoon to fully appreciate it. There honestly was no other way to do it justice, so I gathered other personnel, co-partners in crime, and we sojourned on to St Kilda for a nice long picnic. Overall level of enjoyment received mixed reports: the scenery was beautiful- I am always awed by the lovely sunsets from the beach no matter how many times I've seen it- but the sun was truly deceptive, despite it looking so bright and warm it was really quite quite cold and we very nearly left our toes behind from gangrene. Though all in all I would say it was a really enjoyable day, not much work done, as per usual, but I think my system is getting used to it, which is a definitely alarming sign.
All resolution to work hard reserved once again for tomorrow, the tomorrows that are deceptively never-ending till the brink of exams...
P.S After one respectable but unsuccessful attempt at uploading some pictures on blogger, I think I shall concede defeat and realise that in the world of technological ignoraminity, any attempt is one too many, so I shall just leave the blog entry as it is, plain but hopefully still a decent read.
Ward rounds can oftentime be deadly boring, with us med students trailing after consultants with not the slightest inkling which patients you're seeing and why they're in hospital and what is being done for them. So it ends up degenerating into a mind-numbing physical routine: enter room, smile beguilingly at patient, draw curtain, blank out for the 2 full minutes the consultant talks to patient, realise with a start he's finished talking, return to earth, move on to next room and repeat the entire cycle. sometimes to ease the boredom, you distract yourself with funny recollections of medical faux pas committed by your group mates or mentally grouse about the imminent state of blobiness you're heading towards. During such rounds, I often think of us as seaweed drifting along with the current or if you prefer a medical perspective, like interleukins, given no name or clearly defined purpose, only a number. Medical students have only one duty on the wards, u see: To be the ultimate fly plastered to the wall. And obviously not even for decorative purposes. Unobtrusive is the goal to be attained. The better you blend in, the better things run. Sad, I know, but true.
Having said that, you do sometimes by some stroke of luck chance upon a good round, like the one I had this morning, whereby the team acknowledges your presence and tries to include you and whereby the consultant and reg feed you intermittently with bits and pieces of useful information to try to nourish that sparse field of knowledge you currently possess. You know its a good round when at the end of it you feel this sense of satisfaction. You have some vague idea what the patients are suffering from and how they are to be managed and possess at least a shaky confidence that you might be able to do something constructive for similar patients. And the icing of the cake of a good ward round? Good looking members of the team, of course. Or charming patients can do the trick too. Oh, the shallowness of mankind! Disgraceful, I know, but I feel no remorse. =) What it'll be like when I'm a consultant in the future and no one comes to the ward round...
In other news worth mentioning, the weather was splendid today. Absolutely flawless and spectacular-- cool wind, cloudless skies and sunlight! Lots and lots of it. Really, it left me no other choice but to nip down to St Kilda beach for the afternoon to fully appreciate it. There honestly was no other way to do it justice, so I gathered other personnel, co-partners in crime, and we sojourned on to St Kilda for a nice long picnic. Overall level of enjoyment received mixed reports: the scenery was beautiful- I am always awed by the lovely sunsets from the beach no matter how many times I've seen it- but the sun was truly deceptive, despite it looking so bright and warm it was really quite quite cold and we very nearly left our toes behind from gangrene. Though all in all I would say it was a really enjoyable day, not much work done, as per usual, but I think my system is getting used to it, which is a definitely alarming sign.
All resolution to work hard reserved once again for tomorrow, the tomorrows that are deceptively never-ending till the brink of exams...
P.S After one respectable but unsuccessful attempt at uploading some pictures on blogger, I think I shall concede defeat and realise that in the world of technological ignoraminity, any attempt is one too many, so I shall just leave the blog entry as it is, plain but hopefully still a decent read.
# posted by H : 9:39 PM
