LOL

I was happily wandering in Slumberland during a meeting today - until my pager bleeped.

It was such a shock, I almost swore aloud in surprise as my body went from "Standby" to "Panic" mode in milliseconds.

One of my partners who was observing me while I was asleep said that it was pretty hilarious to watch.

Apparently, I literally jumped up and scrambled for my pager in a panic when I received the bleep.

Luckily I didn't fall out of my chair or something.

And thank goodness that it was a large meeting - it would have obvious to everyone if there were only a handful of people present.

Anyways, the bleep turned out to be from my super-nice PRHO Julianna, who told me that she had a couple of patients for me to bleed.

I feel so bad because she went out of her way to let me know that there's interesting stuff for me to do - but I was fast asleep when she paged me.

Thankfully, I made it to where she was in record time. I would have kicked myself if I had made her wait.

Argh.

Gotta stay awake. Need more coffee.

Fun Fun Fun!

Bwargh!!!

Tried taking blood from a patient but failed to get any blood!

Thankfully, I didn't give him a humongous haematoma.

It's so much easier on the training dummy's arm - I guess I have to just keep practising on real patients!

My apologies in advance, dear patients!

However, on the plus side, my history-taking and basic examinations are a lot more fluid and natural.

Well, I guess that's what comes of taking a couple of histories and doing some examinations each and every day.

Also managed to watch a refashioning of an amputation stump!

It was a bit gory since it involved cutting out a section of remaining bone - but the moment where a small artery was cut and blood was spurting out of it onto the floor was quite funny!

The surgeons cauterized it really quickly, though. Aww.

Yes, I know that I'm sick.

But it's weird, because I've never really liked the sight of gore or blood before.

I guess anyone can get used to anything, sooner or later.

Coffee With Consultants...

This is how not to start a day :-

15 minutes after you arrive at the wards for the daily morning ward rounds, a patient takes the mighty leap to reach the Pearly Gates.

To make it worse, it was a patient that you had just gone in to see barely 5 minutes ago.

Not a good start at all for Day Two at Chesterfield.

However, it got better and better as the day wore on.

After the ward rounds, we followed the consultants, specialist registrars, senior house officers and the house officers to the nearby restaurant for a post-ward rounds meeting.

I sort of expected the affair to be 100% medicine-orientated, but our meeting turned out to be a really informal event.

So informal that the topics discussed in the "meeting" were good places to get curry, reputable and disreputable takeaways, good restaurants and experiences in examining medical students in the OSCE.

I guess I'm really lucky to be attached to Chesterfield.

Everyone over here is really friendly and they make you feel as though you're actually part of the team and not just another pesky medical student who gets in the way of everything.

For instance, the junior doctors, SHOs and the SpRs are really keen to teach us stuff and include us in discussions regarding patients' treatments.

An example - a SHO took us to see "interesting" cases in the morning, teaching us loads of history-taking skills in the process.

Another example - the junior doctor we were attached to taught us how to insert a cannula into patients and how to read chest and abdominal X-rays.

Another example - the consultants allowed us into the OTs to watch not one but two operations that they were carrying out, explaining stuff to us the entire time.

Add that to the fact that we get free lunches every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I think I love the Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

Seriously.

Chesterfield - Day One!

Yay!!

It's a historical moment - I've received my first hospital pager ever!

Historical moments aside, it's slightly a mystery to me as to why the Chesterfield Royal Hospital even bothers giving these pagers out to medical students.

I mean, if an emergency did occur and by some miraculous chance they decide to page us medical students, what would we do?

Run around like headless chickens?

Get in the way of everyone while they're trying to resuscitate the poor patient?

Get traumatised by jets of blood spurting out of someone's corporeal shell in this mortal world and promptly faint, giving them another casualty to be treated?

What I think is - if there's an emergency, they'll bleep us to let us know what's going on.

So we can hide somewhere and make ourselves scarce. And hopefully not get in anyone's way in the process.

LOL.

Seriously though, it's a really nice touch by the hospital.

It kinda makes us feel more involved, I guess. It makes all of us feel like we're part of the team and not just outsiders watching and doing nothing

Although we're not doing really much at the moment.

But I guess watching, learning and practising is pretty much what we're supposed to do at the moment anyways.

Mmm...Yummy!

I bought a prawn and crab sandwich from Scott's Pantry today - and it was absolutely delicious!

For two pounds and twenty pence, this is what you get:

Loads of prawns.
Loads of crab meat.
Salad (with slices of hardboiled eggs).

All wrapped up in a wonderfully soft and delicious bun-like bread thingy.

It was just so good, it literally made my day.

I think I just found my current favourite sandwich! Hahaha!

Wut?! Floods In Sheffield??

Unbelievable.

I never expected it to flood over here.

Especially when rain wasn't all that heavy. It was just raining continuously for a day.

Heck, back home it rains continuously for days on end during the monsoon season.

But flood it did, and it was a pretty huge disaster as well.

At first, I didn't know the scale of the flooding because I left for lectures first thing on Monday morning.

However, as the day wore on, news slowly filtered in.

Fatalities.

The River Sheaf bursting its banks.

Cars being swept away.

Dams in danger of bursting.

Closure of several highways.

I knew it was pretty serious the moment I heard about the dams.

The first time I heard about dams in danger of collapsing, my Dad's hometown was submerged under at least 6 feet of water soon after.

I hoped it wouldn't happen here.

Thankfully, the dams held.

And it was pretty lucky that the area around the University wasn't affected at all.

No, the humongous puddle at the bottom of Northumberland Road doesn't count.

The only major disruption around this area was a brief cut in the power supply while repair work was being carried out in the substations around Sheffield.

I'm not sure how long it'll take for everything to be back to normal again.

But I'm hoping the roads or the train lines will be up and running as fast as possible - I still have to get to Chesterfield this coming Monday!

Where's My Hair???

Finally got my hair cut - after 9 months of growing it out.

Why?

Well, so that the patients I'll be talking to next week won't get the impression that they're talking to a small English sheepdog (see picture).



A small, Asian, English sheepdog.

And my hair had sort of reached the length where annoyingly enough, was still too short to tuck behind my ears but was long enough to get into my mouth whenever I ate.

To cut a long story short, I got it trimmed short.

Now I'll have to wait another 9 months to get my English sheepdog look back.

Brrr.

My head's feeling colder already.

Two Beautiful Stories

Watch the first, read the latter. They're amazingly good. Period.

La Vita E Bella (Life is Beautiful) - a 1997 Italian film

The Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

Is It Summer Yet?

Time really does fly.

In just an instant, Spring has come and gone and now it's Summer. Although Summer has been pretty damp the past couple of days.

Come on, bring on blue and sunny skies! Let there be warm and breezy days! Summer should be Beautiful Weather Galore!

Not a Persistent Mist-Blanketed Incessant Drizzle, which pretty much sums up the weather for the past two days. And projected by the Met Office to remain as such for two more days at least.

However, even though the weather's been pretty miserable the past few days, I've been enjoying it so far.

You must think I'm nuts. I think I am, too.

After all, what's there to like about gloomy skies and wet days?

It's weird, but I find a certain charm in mist-blanketed surroundings with a persistent, gentle drizzle.

Somehow, it all feels very English and when I look around me I think "how appropriate".

Just like the settings of a story book.

What's missing are the ivy vines creeping up the side of buildings, weeping willows by a stream and mild-mannered cows chewing their cud by the fence.

But those sights aren't very common in a city, I guess.

I mean, if I saw cows chewing their cud by a fence, my first instinct would to look for an overturned trailer or something similar.

But I guess I have to be thankful for what I have. It is pretty pleasant living where I am right now.

Although maybe one day I'll get bored of it and look out of my window and go "What horrid weather" instead of "Ah, it looks nice".

Maybe someday the charm of it will wear off, maybe not.

But until that day comes, I'll just enjoy every moment of it.

Bring It On!

I can't believe that it's already the night before Phase 2!

In so many ways, I'm really looking forward to this new academic year!

It feels as though I've jumped (or at least stumbled) over some invisible hurdle to finally begin my training proper!

Things are going to get a lot harder from now on, but I know it's time for me to buck up and persevere!

I've come this far - I'm not about to give up!

All I can say is, bring it on!!!