Fitting in

I had another sleepless night yesterday night... typical on call night, but with extra admissions and one emergency case. One of my patient, who was previously transferred from HDU (high dependancy unit) developed APO (acute pulmonary edema) in the middle of the night, passed midnight. I was clerking a simple febrile fit patient in ward 5B, then the nurses called me and told that the patient was in respiratory distress. So I straight away went to the ward 5A, and he was tachypneic, respiratory rate (RR) was 44/min. He had Dengue shock syndrome, with renal impairment. He was IV drip and at the same time, he drank lots and lots of water, hence the APO! I called my MO and she called the specialist on call that night. He suggested we should start the patient on IV Lasix to get rid of all the excess water and get the nephrologist to review the patient. So at 5am, I had to accompany the patient for hemodialysis... and.... at the same time, there were 4 new admissions, waiting to be seen! Oh what a night! In times like this, I realize that clerking can be postponed, I mean the full detailed clerking, the ones where you ask about every single thing. What's most important is to quickly review the patient, ask what happened and give the plan and get the nurses to administer the drugs that you planned for. Because if you were to wait until you clerk each one then manage, the patient might deteriorate by the time you come up with a diagnosis and action plan. It's skills like this you get to develop as you go along, and it takes time until you become really efficient. I just cannot wait until I become really efficient and get things done quickly, and not get palpitations every time I hear my phone rings telling me about patients! Speaking of the phone ringing, now, whenever my phone rings, my heart stops a few beats until I see that it's not "Hospital Serdang" calling. I guess I should start assigning the ringtones for everyone so that I wont get confused. During houseman ship, you are required to be available all the time! Even when you are not on call, when the hospital calls you, you have to go no matter what. But so far, I haven't encountered any situations like that. Another challenge when fitting into a new job is, you are required to do many things and finished them off really fast... I mean, I can do them perfectly, but at a slower pace, and specialists don't go by that pace!

On a different note, the other day, my patient asked whether I was on Facebook... how funny is that, right? He was a little boy around 12 years old, came in for acute exacerbation of asthma secondary to URTI. His mother thought that it might a good idea for him to contact me and chat.... WTH?? Anyway, I just laughed... I didn't feel comfortable. I understand the mother's intention, but I don't know... I haven't been filtering my friend request lately... most of them are mutual friends of my moms, so I just accept according to my mood, hihi.

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Today, I had a short day at work, I went back at 2.30 pm. I went straight to Gombak to my inlaw's house. There was no one at home, my parents went off to Penang yesterday, so I thought, why should I stay home alone, so I joined my inlaws for an early dinner. Sadly, I had to leave before Maghrib since I'll be on call tomorrow, so I wanted to rest tonight before another long day. On the way back, I used a different route because there was an accident I think, an ambulance passed by me a few meters before and the cars were static. I don't know whether the accident was blocking the road or it's because people slowed down to see what's happening. Sometimes I wonder, why do people like to look at accident sites, isn't horrifying? I certainly ignore and keep my eyes focused on my driving whenever there are accidents! Anyway, I ended up going round and round KL trying to find my way back home... hihi... alhamdulillah I arrived home safely. It was nice long drive, not so long actually, extra 20 minutes. It's been a while since I drove, because since I started work, my husband or my dad had been sending me off and picking me up. I'm too lazy to drive and find the parking... besides, the hospital is only 7 minutes away from home!

Last Thursday, I had my H1N1 vaccination.... finally! The first liners were required to get the vaccine. I was really scared when the nurse was about to poke me! They laughed at me, hehe.. and they said, "doctor cucuk orang setiap hari ok, takkan nak takut!" so I admitted, yes I do poke people everyday, but I'm still scared of needles!!! But honestly, it didn't hurt at all, it was just like an insect bite. I prayed hard so that I wont develop any fever since I was on call that night, and alhamdullillah, I remained afebrile until today. But my arms hurt little bit, at the site of injection.

Ok... I have to get back to studying. I have a viva exam this Tuesday with the specialists. They want to assess me after one month of working and write a report to Cairo University, telling how their graduates are! I hope to do well and answer correctly! Please pray that I get better and better everyday. There are so many things to learn everyday.

Have a nice day everyone!