Thursday 18 November 2010

Define: House Officer

I'm now way into my second rotation and I managed to let my surgery rotation go by without a blog post. For the past 5 months, my life was just a ping pong between work and going to sleep... A life devoid of blogger and twitter... (And then you get people still pestering me to get myself on Facebook!)

So, what does it feel like working as a house officer? I recently wrote a 500 word article on MMSA's Fresher's booklet trying to summarise what I'm currently going through at the moment. I was going to copy and paste that article onto my blog. But then I realised that I need not bore you with lengthy articles when you have a anonymous genius who writes quotes like these on the Internet...

"We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing."

That, dear ladies and gentleman, is the perfect definition of a house officer. Please consider this sentence seriously before you become a doctor.

The end.

Monday 21 June 2010

Reason to Celebrate

Results have come out on Friday at noon... When I was still out shopping for a Father's Day present in Tigne; only to be told by my best friend on arriving at chaplaincy, "Mar, results have been out for, like, three quarters of an hour!"

Yes... And I passed my exams! I'm finally a doctor. (A real doctor, you know, not a lawyer :P) I want to say sorry for breaking the news so late on my blog, but these days I've been feeling like I was living on space cake and hash cookies.

I just want to say thanks to all those people who supported me throughout this journey as a medical student. A special thank you goes to all those who helped me in my studies, bore with my neurosis and soaked me in prayer. Honestly, I couldn't have done this without you. It's true that I've worked hard and that I've studied lots. But, at the end of the day...

There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success.
George Burton Adams

So... to all those who helped in any way... Thank you! :)

In the meantime, watch this space for more of my misadventures. They'll probably start in two weeks' time.

Tuesday 15 June 2010

From My Calendar

Four birthdays ago, a dear friend gave me this Calendar God's Daily Inspirations which I religiously (pun intended) flip through every single day. And this is today's Verse of the Day...

He will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the
fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of
your cattle and the issue of your flock, in the land that he swore to your
ancestors to give you."

Deuteronomy 7: 13

I don't know whether it's pure coincidence or God's uncanny sense of humour... But it surely is an appropriate Bible quote right before an obstetrics and gynaecology practical exam!

Thursday 27 May 2010

When I'm on Duty


*For the next ten minutes I’m going to ignore the fact that night duties can be tiring, tough and have the potential of turning you into a cranky individual as though you are in a permanent state of PMS.*

Amidst my surgery boredom (and trying to psychologically prepare myself for the ordeal to come on passing the 5th year) I decided to outline a list of things I’d want to do when on duty… For those rare moments when the hospital gets quiet in the middle of the night…
  • Decorate my pager with pretty stickers.
  • Set up a Wall of Shame at Doctor’s Quarters and post embarrassing photos of other people… You know… Just like on Facebook!
  • Offer a colleague (e.g. Karl) coffee… with Burinex… or Klean Prep… or both.
  • Fill the sofas at doctor’s quarters with whoopee cushions.
  • Gather everyone on duty in the Neuromedical Ward and order a Pizza by Luca. Then thank them with a prank phone call with weird complaints about the food. Aim of the phone call? A complimentary 16 inch pizza for the coming duty.
  • Write songs for Joe Demicoli to sing in the next Malta Song for Europe.
  • Spell out “This Food Stinks” with my lunch and dinner leftovers in the hospital canteen.
  • Sing out loud (for all the world to hear) Frank Sinatra’s Night and Day to my pager every time it bleeps. (I have this gut feeling that I should better get cracking to learn those lyrics.)
  • Race colleagues in the 1st floor hospital corridor… in wheelchairs! xD
  • Cover a sleeping colleague in shaving foam.
  • Buy a new bottle of water and superglue the tap on. Ask my colleagues to kindly open the bottle, record all the action on my iPod and share the stupidity with the rest of the world on YouTube.

Any more ideas are welcome... :)

Tuesday 18 May 2010

The Difference Between Specialities

A physician is someone who knows everything and does nothing.
A surgeon is someone who does everything and knows nothing.
A psychiatrist is someone who knows nothing and does nothing.
A pathologist is someone who knows everything and does everything, but only when it is too late.
Kudos to Samuel, who left a very lame comment on my previous blog post. He does come up with a good one from time to time... barely... But it happens. :)

Sunday 16 May 2010

Rant #2

*WARNING! Possibly lame post ahead.*


So I’m typing this post with only one month left to go... not to start my exams but to finish them. God willing, on the 16th of June I’ll finish my final medicine practical at 14:15hrs.

Many readers at this point will fear that I’m going to start whining on how scarier things are getting with finals fast approaching. Indeed, the pressure is on, but I’m too tired to waste my time figuring out what I’m feeling at this point.

The anxiety started mounting to insurmountable limits since the day we finished psychiatry last November. With everybody reminding us how the practical exams have such a heavy weighting in 5th year, there was, and still is, much pressure on everybody... Pressure to perform... Pressure to have a good knowledge base... To make sure that consultants see your face for when the jitters get the better of you on the day and your performance falters. You know, a familiar face is, at least, proof that you’ve been around in hospital and that the dip in your performance is certainly not due to lack of effort.

Oh yes! The pressure was on way before the month of May. Pressure to get your clinical skills polished... Pressure to get all the physical signs right... Pressure to get the correct diagnosis... To get a pat on the back for your impeccable clinical judgement and for knowing all the impressive small print in the textbooks... The thing is that to work for such an astounding clinical performance in a space with finite resources, you see people competing for the best patients, the best tutors and the best seats during tutorials.

That is what, in reality, makes 5th year such a time of adversity – all this useless competition for nothing. After all, the vast majority of us are going to make it anyway, and our ranking has been out since February. And in the end, no amount of tutorials and fighting will outweigh the benefit of the work you do out of hours on your own or, perhaps, with a friend/study partner.

Nevertheless, 5th year is still perceived by many as a time of great adversity (!). And adversity doesn’t build character... it reveals it! I cannot say that I am particularly shocked by what I saw. I saw it coming from miles away. I mean, what can you possibly expect from people who, last year, spoke of a woman in labour as being “MY vaginal delivery because I booked this mother last week!”? But I was certainly disgusted by what I saw people do to each other.

After all, as much as it’s true that the pressures of 5th year are real, it is also equally true that it is just an undergraduate exam. There might seem to be so much at stake at the moment... We’re tired now... We don’t want that extra three months or one year studying medicine, or surgery, or obstetrics and gynaecology. We want to graduate with the rest of our friends. We need this job because we desperately need the money.

But they are, nonetheless, exams like all the rest. And no one needs to stop down so low just to get the pass mark. To be fair, the majority of people are stooping low for the A rather than the D which, in my opinion, is simply not worth it in the long run. If a medical student is so ready to give up their integrity for a silly distinction, then only hell knows what this person will be ready to give up to climb up the career ladder of success in the very near future...

Truth be told... I'm just too tired to care!!!

Sunday 2 May 2010

For All it's Worth!

I've been meaning to pen something down for quite a while. But I was too caught up trying to keep up with my study schedule. For once in a very long time, I actually constructed a revision time table on an Excel spread sheet, specifically on the 6th of April which I called "My Race to the Finish".

Am I managing to stick to it? Not as much as I would like to. But it's there... As though I need it to remind me that after a tiring day of tutorials, ward rounds and seeing patients, I have to hit the textbooks.... That in exactly one months time, I would have already finished my surgery written and would be one hour into my medicine paper.

It's been like that for the past many years of my life (7+ years) that I feel like a ping pong ball bouncing from one desk bench to another, from one pack of notes to another and from one exam to the next (with a few, very intermittent, extracurricular activities in between). Devoting 90% of my waking time at home studying seemed like the natural thing to do...

Then came in the greatest procrastinator tool of all time... Facebook! Now, I don't have Facebook and don't intend to ever have Facebook, reasons for which require another blog post. But my other medicine friends who hang around with me in the library do, and they pay it a visit every now and again in between periods of study. (And on a very bad day, people study every now and again between very long periods of Facebook.)

Hearing them giggling stupidly at their laptop screens stirs up my curiosity and slowly, slowly I am lured into this display of photos and Facebook walls of people living a very different sort of life. During holidays and weekends, people go to parties, go on picnics and camping trips, go swimming in Easter (and sometimes even in February, you know, out of tradition). You get people making time to enjoy the sun, talking about the Pope and everything that's going on whilst I'm cocooned around the four walls of the hospital.

And people tag photos, type silly things on their Facebook walls... And I look at my books and ponder on the hours I spent with them and wonder to myself... At the end of the day, is it really worth it?

Sunday 28 March 2010

The Future of the Species...



The Heart: A muscular organ in the centre of the chest on which the future of the individual depends.




The Uterus: A muscular organ in the centre of the pelvis on which the future of the species depends.




As you can see... I'm studying gynae...
Thought I'd post these plush toys to keep me a little company as I read about how that cute looking uterus can be destroyed by tumour...

Friday 12 March 2010

Quote No. 1

Just when I was asking what the hell I was thinking when I decided to become a doctor, I stumbled across this in my Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (my medicine text book)...

The pleasure of a physician is little, the gratitude of patients is rare, and even rarer is material reward, but these things will never deter the student who feels the call within him.

Theodor Billroth
Oh God! Talk about depressing! It can't be that bad surely... Or is it... ?
If anyone can supply my morale with Gatorade... Leave a comment...

Sunday 28 February 2010

Three Years Old

My blog is three years old today... with the first post being written on a Wednesday to herald the start of the Y4J Lenten talks Let's Face It back in 2007. And here I am typing the 80th entry today three years later.

Mind you, there was much to type and harp about these last couple of months, with the most tempting topic being the saga featuring the rattle snake Daphne Caruana Galizia crossing swords with the woman looking "like a cross between Worzel Gummidge and the back of a bus" i.e. Consuelo Scerri Herrera (a.k.a Consie). When the medicine and surgery starts getting dreary, I just find myself trying to get the latest scoop from her blog. Yes it's rude, crude, raw and quite off putting for some readers but I find the raw honesty and crudeness way too entertaining. Thank God there is no Wifi in our lecture rooms!

Then there are the more internal issues that people outside the world of medical school will find very boresome to read; and in my opinion, anything that doesn't keep people entertained is just not worth penning down at all! Thing is... Not knowing who your readers are makes it difficult to keep them entertained, isn't it? Blogs are usually faithfully followed by "friends", a word that I have to unfortunately use in inverted commas.

Friendships at medical school was something I never really had problems with (until recently). Friendships in community, admittedly, is a totally different matter for reasons that are numerous and multi-factorial (for example, me not turning up to meetings since before Christmas doesn't help the situation at all).

But now, with less than 3 months to go for the final exams, people at medical school really and truly change in the face of fierce competition... Including so-called "friends". I was lucky to have seen this coming from miles away. Any longsighted individual would have had a taste of "what is to come in 5th year" last year. All that had to be done was have Prof. Charles Savona Ventura dish out a logbook to a class of 60 students to complete in 7 weeks, and what do you get? Colleagues fighting and back stabbing each other over mothers giving birth as though these poor mothers are pieces of fish in a lake of killer whales... All so that they'll get their obstetrics and gynaecology logbook over and done with on time with the least amount of hassle (there would be pathology text books waiting for us at home).

And that was just a prodrome! Now, we're getting patients complaining that their abdomen has been palpated as though under a hand presser made of steel, just so that they can possibly get a feel for his small difficult-to-detect polycystic kidneys... Even if it has to take them 1.5 hours of the patients time and agony! Such students are few. The majority are quite a polite and considerate bunch. But unfortuantely, when they come with the best of their bedside manners, they would still be greeted with a disappointing:

aqq il-medical students li ħalaq Alla!"

And this wouldn't be from a typical Maltese qattani! Because when the house officer convinces the patient, "They just want to feel your loin. They have exams in 3 months", -żejt jitla’ f’ wiċċ l-ilma and his side of the story comes out as though he would have just been given three drops of truth potion.

There were other stories of the sort... like students crouching with their ophthalmoscopes seven at a time to see a poor blind man with Retinitis Pigmentosa whilst waiting for his transfer at an old people's institution. He was a very nice man but, fl-aħħar, he had had enough! And I don't blame him in the slightest! (Even though I didnt' get to see him.)

And your friend asks you for patients. You give him/her a couple. Then you'd expect him/her to return the favour. Wara kollox, kull qalb tridra... mhux hekk? And two things may happen...
1) Your "friend" may either just walk away and not give you anything.
2) Your "friend" will purposely send you the patients who are "social cases" with no findings, discharged a week ago or they send you to take a "good history" from someone who is deaf...

And this is just in a class of 57 5th years. I cannot even begin to imagine what the situation will be like in 4 years time when the 5th year class will be a 130!

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Rant #1

It's the 2nd of February and my blog has been on stalemate for 2 months plus. Reasons? Miscellaneous... Including the fact that things got very hectic after the psychiatry module. Since that time I...
  • Started and finished obs and gynae attachment
  • Finished and handed in my obs and gynae logbook
  • Celebrated Christmas and New Year's Eve/Day
  • Went to one funeral of a dear friend
  • Could have potentially gone to two others (including that of Prof. A. Cuschieri)
  • Got my driver's licence :D
  • Had a Family Medicine Exam in January (25th)
  • Had my Foundation Programme job interview last Friday (wasn't that bad)
  • Is close to finishing the surgery logbook as the list of tutorials piles on
In the meantime:
  • Surgery revision lectures are practically over
  • Obs and gynae revision lectures are also practically over
  • All 5th years have the fear of God instilled into them for the upcoming finals in June
Yes, in 2 months we did all that and still... NO PSYCHIATRY EXAM RESULT.

This concerned many of us, so one member of the class took the initiative to send an email vis-à-vis when the psychiatry exam result will come out.

The reply?

"I cannot give you a straight answer when the result will be issued, but I can tell you that progress has been made and hopefully in the coming weeks, the results will be issued.

Warm Regards"

I give up!