fear

Bismillah

The first half of my HOship was filled with fear. And it was understandable. I was a beginner, a beginner dealing with lives.

What I regretted doing however, was being afraid of my MOs. I am not one who actually paid attention to whom I will be oncall with but there was a time where I got caught up in the trend of wanting to know the kind of person I will be working with. (housemanship does that to you, you know, strips you off of your identity in the first year. One day you are you and another, you become z kepochi ah po)

Well, perhaps the necessary thing you need to pay attention to is their names. Their potential is something you have to discover for yourself, as you work alongside them. Many the times when I developed bad calls are because I work with the premade assumptions passed down through generations of HOs regarding the reputation of certain MOs. Knowing made me a little too careful of my steps, which hinders the development of the star healer I wanted to be.

Mind you, some MOs are really a pain in the ear and heart and soul but have firm believe that, their believes in who you are does not determine your competency. Your competency determines your competency.

Work with the right intention, and though hard at times, try to find the goods in others. Make that a challenge for yourself, to renew your hope and faith in a person every single day. And when you find that good thing, that common ground, work on that and you'll survive. In fact, you'll grow so much, your heart and mind, that you manage to bring the best of you in any situation. And if God wills it, you'd see a side of a person you never thought existed before!

Be an agent of mercy in this field. To your patients, to your colleague. Penat macam mana pun, it will be worth it.

God knows, I am no saint. I kinda still have a grudge on an MO (distance is helping a lot in preventing any acts of revenge. Heee.)

Love,
Your Houseman

assisting a caesarean section

Bismillah


Being a Houseman in the Obs and Gynae department means having to assist the MOs and Specialists as they carry out Caesarean sections. And 2 nights back, God had been kind enough to bless me with a kind MO for me to assist with her procedures.

I'm writing this because I was severely cut out from the Operating Theater in my early days due to my lack of experience and being paired with an MO who was just not that cool. Haha, I was Caesar-phobic for almost a month and a half because of that. Ish. Wasted my time to accumulate skill aje.

Anyway, the part which you have to carry out without being told to includes: preparing the antibiotics, write on the board the patient's particulars, putting on the catheter and scrubbing in.

The assisting starts as patient is started on spinal/GA.

1. Painting. ie, cleaning the op site. This is mostly done by MOs. Done in 3 layers, using a sponge forcep and a few pieces of gauze, twice with iodine, once with alcohol, then clean with a clean gauze. Be generous with the iodine/alcohol. Start from the op site, going from the lateral part of the patient away from you, towards the lateral part near you. Paint in linear pattern, till the umbilicus where you swap a little more so you dont miss out any folds, then go a little bit higher with your linear motions till the fundal area. Then you can move on to the thighs, from the lateral side away from you, to the side near you, and paint cranial to caudal, up to mid/ three quarter thigh. Then clean the mons pubis and and the labia. Repeat with second wash of iodine and then with alcohol, Then clean off the liquids over the op site with the clean gauze.

I think I must integrate a photo with this one. Hehe. Will draw and upload later. Work is calling.

Learn and share shall we? ;)

si bidadari

Bismillah

Setiap hari aku menanti
Tunggu masa tuk kau muncul diri
Manalah engkau
Si bidadari
Ku akan tunggu sepanjang hari

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Truth be told, what drives me to survive the rough edges of housemanship is the fact that I want to be a great doctor. I need the skills to go far. And for that, I need to be humble enough to learn and admit my shortcomings and mistakes. I need to be brave enough to question what may be contradicting to what I was accustomed to (especially the fact that, in any practice, it is very, very unprofessional to screw your own colleagues in front of a client). Do remind me when I am done with these two years, that, I need to be someone whom inspire my fellow colleague to be happy to do that little extra. :)

-----

Penantian
Berisi sabar dan usaha
Fikirku
Lebih bermakna begitu

Bidadari kaya tolong bayar sebahagian hutang belajar aku. Aku bayar lagi sebahagian. Kemudian kita kembara ke dunia yang benar-benar perlukan khidmat kau dan aku.

case presenting

Bismillah

In the midst of chaos
And people laughing it off
Once attention turns to me
I begin
Where I left off

:)