The beginning of working life..

As i stepped out of my uni life and started to work, i found out that its a totally different thing whereby my obligations and my aims has totally change.. In fact, i have to turn my life around and see it in a different angles. During my uni life, what i need to do is to study study and study.. You can be as irresponsible as you can.. For example during clerking cases in ward. Most of us would only accomplish what was required, like asking the patients all the silly questions in order to get the diagnosis and to make our histories as complete as possible. And then, did lots of maneuvres and examinations like no man business, and after all the mess, we could just leave them in vain as our mission had already accomplished. And to make it more irresponsible, we don go and update the patients with their current treatments and their conditions.. Or merely looking at the patient's folder to copy what we needed.Thats what we usually do.. So, we barely get to know the patient well or even stay back, sit with them and get involve with them, cry and laugh with them. So,the aim is only to study and graduate.

When talking abt working life, its not about study anymore.. The obligation is there. When you are in charge of certain patient, u know him inside out. You know their sickness, their family and to the ultimates, u even cares about their social life.. As a houseman with long working hours, the good thing is that u are the man of the house and u know every single tiny-minny stuffs about your patient.. Starting from the beginning where the patient admit, you can look at their suffering facies, either in pain or super anxious about their own sickness, in anger or in misery. From their looks, you know they need help. they need solutions from you. And there will be thousands of questions thrown to you from the anxious family members. Getting ready to answer one by one cautiously. No mistakes allowed.

As the patient admitted, u will review them closely and do procedures on them.. Blood taking, inserting lines, injections and even do irrigations on the bleeding wound (as in ortho per say). So, there will be addition of harm instead of soothing stuff.. then, u will monitor their progression, their vitals and so on.. On the other hand,u can ''browse'' thru the family members..either they are ignorant, super concern, super anxious or super irritated. All these true colors shown when bad things happen. And the worst part of all is .. when the family members ask u to let their beloved ones to admit as long as possible as there will be no one to take care of him/her at home.. And from here, their social histories revealed without any further researches done.. So, as the first liner in the hospital, we get to know their families and the patient from the moment the he/she admitted to ward with empty battery until discharged with full batt.

So, the challenge is there. What we studies do apply but only a quarter of it. The rest are base on the soft skills in term of communications, experience and emotional intelligence. All these comes in when we are dealing with humans and lifes..........

1st day in orthopaedics

After 2 days of orientations in HBP, i was immediately being allocated to orthopedic ward. Blankly without any guidance, i went to see the head of department to intro myself .I was given a briefing abregarding the department's activity such as the orthopedic conference, CME, and mortality conference.. At that time, it was 5pm . I was thinking i could still have some time to go bec and prepare for work next day by reading some notes for backups. Unbelievably, i was asked to work immediately until 11pm that day. and then tagging from 7am to 11pm for the next 14 days.
Fuhh... with a scary feeling, i went to the allocated ward to intro myself to everybody. My first intro to my collegues was when they were doing wound debridement on a patient. And the funny thing is that one of my collegue~ holding a blade,with mask and apron saying halo to me..and the other one sitting on the bed in the treatment room, writing folders. There was also a crowd watching the procedures. In a mixed and confusing environment, i was accepted to be a part of them.
Initially, i was very scared and blank. Out of a sudden, i got a job to be done which is to take blood from poor GCS patient. I was thinking that it might be an easy stuff. But unfortunately, when i see the patient, i got shocked. he was hemiplegic with a stiff flexed elbow and pronated forearm while the other hand was all bumped and there was an IV drip in situ. Hmm.. as a freshie , i was so blank. I try to stretch the hemiplegic parts so that i can get blood from there.. And for sure, i failed to do so.. I was alone dealing with the patient. I looked at him and weirdly, he was lookking at me too.. we stared at each other for seconds. Then , something strikes me.. Oh yah.. I need to ask ppl.. Fortunately, i got an answer which is to take from the femoral artery. What a relief...
Another problem arise.. I never took blood from there.. swt(-_-)''''
What to do.. how.. why... what... all the 4W and 1H floating in my mind.. I never thought blood taking can be such a headache. I started to regret why i dint learn more in uni. but no matter what, i need to get the blood. So, i took a deep breath and gave my shot... Got it ! Happily, i labeled the bottle and sent the blood for investigations..
At that moment of time, i learned something. I should know how to figure things out myself. Don be too rigid and learn to be flexible by using more common sense instead of cow sense. Besides, i can also ask people.. No harm of asking while u can have some ideas on what to do... Overall, i gained something for the day.
Back home at 11 something.. flipping the 1st page of the orthopedic notes.. slept..