Thursday, January 23

medicine: wk3, day 18

observations:
- the irony: patients sleep all day and can't wait to get out of bed and move around. doctors hustle (and i mean, hustle) like crazy to get patients well, and would like to get any sleep. 2 extremes, in the same unit.

- mistakes #1:even something so simple as giving water to a patient asking for it is not that simple. you can't give water to some patients.
- mistakes #2: always check the name tag. today, i approached a pt (not mine, and thus i was not familiar with him), from whom i was supposed to draw blood. "hello, are you mr. g?" patient smiles and nods. i am about to draw blood before the nurse stops me. turns out that the patient is mute and deaf. i should've wondered why he was so smiley and happy. doh.

- things that make you shake your head: we work hard to control the sugar levels in diabetics. we wonder why it shoots up sometimes, inexplicably. then our eyes shift to the bedside and see the 5 used packets of sugar that the patient had with his coffee. what are the nutritionists thinking?! we ordered a diabetic meal!

- i have no idea what is going on in the world: no sense of tv shows, no current events. had no idea that s. korea got a new president. and... that's the only news i've heard...

- hard to believe: a care facillity that takes in pts who are going to die won't take patients from us unless they have documents from us saying that the patient will die within 6 months. they need to make sure that the bed will open up within a certain time period. practicality is a terrible thing.

- what i dislike the most about medicine: doing rectals/guaiacs (sticking finger up the patients anus, grabbing some stool, putting it on a card, and use a developing liquid that will tell if there is any blood in the stool)

- laugh of the day #1: i went in to do a rectal. the patient looks at me with horror, and says, "take it easy on me, doc, i'm a virgin!"

i burst out laughing.

- laugh of the day #2(which is a little mean...): i was in the elevator with one other gentleman. he shuffled over closer to me, and said something. i didn't respond, because he was clearly talking to someone behind me. i even turned around, to see who he was talking to, and saw. . . .

nobody. the wall of the elevator. which was rather dumb, because i knew perfectly well that there was no one else in the elevator. it was a reflex, i guess. i turned back to the man, and realized that his eyes were not aligned properly. he WAS talking to me. and looking 6 inches to my right. he was smiling, as if he had pulled off the greatest joke in the world. i blushed, and was so embarrassed that i missed his question again, and had to ask him to repeat it once more.

*note to self: chcory:soeasilysocasually.:(*


yakob at 1:29 AM

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