A Whole New World

So this is my first day to ward.

The morning started with Prof. Chan's briefing. He turned out to be a much more humourous guy than I had thought. Strict but nice + a bit of balck humour. Nice.

Then we proceed to the ward to clerk cases ourselves.

The afternoon started with ward teaching by Prof. Thomlinson,who took us to 9 C and also 11 AB wards (infectious ward) which we cannot go by ourselves. Then we went back to 9AB to ask about the ward round schedule. And also updated ourselves with a pt we clerked earlier on.

So Lilian and I clerked two patient. One with a very typical spontaneous penumothorax. One with COPD exacerbation.. and a mix of many other diseases. Pretty happy since this is the first time I see such a big tension pneumothorax. And for the second patient, I managed to pick up abdominal distension, hepatomegaly and ascitis although the histroy did not really point directly to that.

The ward is a totally new place for me--a whole new world. I mean I have been there before. But being attached to it, being a part of it, is a totally different matter. It is the first time I have the time and opportunities to feel the dynamics in the ward.

Hospital wards, are prehaps, one of the most complex places in the world in terms of emotion.

Today, a patient who has COPD was going to leave and his relatives and families were all staying with him. The family, although must be pretty prepared, looked depressed. Nurses go to them from time to time asking them to eat something, telling them that they will collapse and add burden to other family members if they don't-- a sort of alternative encouragement by the nurses I suppose.

In the nursing station and around the beds, nurses and assistants are buzzing here and there, busying handling the patient--some are cooperative, some are confused, some are annoyed. The nurses are pretty irritable-- yet, you can always sense the caring heart behind the shouting voices.

Students like me a idling around the beds and the X ray box.. willing to learn but sort of confused by the new atmosphere.

Curiosity, care, annoyance, depression, broken heart, ambition, smiles and laughter, tears... you can find all in a medical ward. What a place.

And yet, this is the place which we have chosen to stay for our career. Ah.. I really wanna mature quicker.

Finished today pretty early-- exhausted after standing a whole day on my leather shoes..sore! I was reading the relevant materials all night. YEAH, this is the feel that I need-- the feeling to relevance, the feeling of application of knowledge. Gosh, I love this!