I can't believe..i now i keep saying this..that my 6 weeks of elective in Samoa have come to an end. It has flown by and really sad to leave such a lovely and friendly place!
We are off to start ur travels on Friday....we fly into Auckland and have 5 days in the North Island and then fly to Christchurch where we have a few days either side of our bus tour. We are going on a seven day tour of the South Island which sounds great! We will have to get used to the weather! I cant believe that im no that brown after 6 wks here...but my excuseis ive been inside working hard all day so no time to sunbathe lol!
Considering its rainy season now..looking out of the internet cafe window..you wouldnt know it..though it mainly rains in the evenings!
This weekend we went to a beach down south of Upolu called Aganoa. It is a black sand beach. It was almost deserted meaning that we had the beach to ourselves! Im not quite sure why this is the only black sand beach in Samoa..but one thought is that it is broken up lava from the many volcanic eruptions that Samoa have had, but then i am confused to why there aren't more black sand beaches. The sea was v.rough....we played a game seeing if we could stand up against the waves. Sometimes we managed to...'the force was with us'! and other times a wave sent me crashing along with it...roly pollying!..until in finally came to a halt..washed up on the beach! The wave would drag you in with it..and then the wave before would drag you out..so waves kept sneaking up on us and knocking us off our feet..but was great fun..though i may have brought some of the black sand back with me..accidentally..as half of it wasprobably up my nose and in my stomach having swallowed so much sea water!
Sunday was a complete wash-out...it rained the entire day...so we had a DVD day!
For our last week of the hospital we have continued doing paediatrics in the morning..as it has been really good. Now we have a slight clue what's going on.....we frantically scribble in the notes..check if the kid has a fever etc..and examine them.......and then present our findings to the intern....who most of the time concurs...but occasionally implies to me that i should wash my stethoscope..and possibly my ears out lol..dont worry..im not that bad! In the afternoon we went to A and E..though it was very quiet!
Last night we went in at 5pm..thinking that pts may come after work. It was still dead..which is weird for an A and E, but got to see some outpatients. One guy came in with an infected wound..which had become really infected. I wont go into gory details....but apparently he had something called SSS, (Staphylococcocal Scaled Skin Syndrome). I had never heard of it, but having looked it up, the description fits this gentleman! I then got to put a cannula in him and we then admitted him as he needs IV antibiotics.
So many children come into outpatients with bronchiolitis or pneumonia....that they almost need a separate outpatients just for them!
Yesterday afternoon we went to a place called Sliding Rocks! The guide-book said that it is an 'obligatory visit' for everyone in Apia..so we decided to go in our last few days! Lots of the water had dried up..making it more dangerous to slide. We hung around for about 30min.....i kept sizing up the v.bumpy looking rocks with a bit of water running over them..working out how i could minimise the damage to myself. I was abut to chicken out..when some other people arrived and went to the 5m slide. Having seen him and then a 42 yr old mum do the slide..i decided to go for it! Like always..i couldnt make myself slide..but one false move...and there is no turning back...and i ended up sliding down.....it is over v.quickly..and suprisingly it is so quick that you dont feel all the bumpy rocks! Having done it once..and loved the adrenalin rush..i did it again..but this time went slightly to the left of the stream...resulting in a slightly more bumpy and more frictioned slide..but was still good fun!
I hope everyone is well
It is funny to keep hearing that more friends and family are reading this blog. I didnt expect it to have much circulation..and ive never been good at English but it great to hear that everyone is enjoying reading the trials and tribulations in Sarah World!
i wont have anymore to tell everyone when i get back..as everyone will be telling me what ive done..which is good..as i ll need reminding! But dont worry..i havent written everything on here..and for years to come..ill remember Samoa and things will pop up in conversation..like what has been happening since i went to Mexico last summer!
Love to everyone
and truly thanks for everyone's best wishes and love
Sending love back over the ocean..hope its not a choppy ride!
xxxx
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Either the Samoans have tough skin...literally...or we the English are wimps!
Sadly......we leave Samoa a week today. At times it feels like it time has been going very slowly...but weeks have rushed by and now we are in our final week. It is now the 'last time' we do everything.....but im upbeaet as had a great time here...and would definitely consider coming back to visit....though not for another 6 weeks unless i was working in the hospital.......or they discover more tourist attractions lol!
We have hit the hospital hard this week and i have been doing paediatrics in the morning and A and E in the afternoons or evenings.
Now we have been on paediatrics for a while, the intern gives us a file and we go and see patients on the ward round by ourselves. It is scary as she often goes on what we say and find on clinical examination but it has taught me to trust what i think. Eg if i think there is reduced air entry on one side, then i say so. Whereas before i wouldnt have the confidence to and would think it was just me hearing things wrong. I need to get more fine tuned to paediatric heart murmurs but it is so easy to get distracted when you have cute babies staring up at you with their wide eyes and tugging on your stethoscope. I need to learn the Samoan word for vomit and diarrhoea though, as it has lead to some interesting sound effects this week when i try and take a history from patients and ask if they have vomited. It goes like, 'Have you been sick? (Blank Face)....'Have you thrown up/vomited?'...(Blank Face).....'Can you keep your food down?'...more blanks...i then have to precede to pretending to throw up and ask if that has happened to them! I get greeted with an amused/confused smile and they just say 'i dont know again'! So it looks like i need to either perfect the action or just find out the Samoan word!
We did an evening shift last night at A and E. It was suprisingly quiet but perked up a bit later on. We saw a lady who was having a spontaneous miscarriage, many kids with bronchiolitis, and a few patients who needed stitches following rugby incidents, dog bites etc. We watched the doctor do some stitches and he very kindly took the time to show us how to do stitches. The problem then was that there was no one left who needed stitches..so we resorted to practising our stitches with some thread around a drip stand! At about 10.30pm boy came in who had been fishing for crabs..i dont know what you call people who collect crabs...fishing seems a contradiction lol!.Seafooding or something! He had fallen and had a nasty cut on his foot and had severed a tendon, which meant that he was unable to lift his foot towards his body. The doctor repaired the tendon and then we got a go at stitching. Like everything.....when you arent doing it..it looks quite easy..however i soon discovered the toughness of Samoan skin when i tried to get the needle through, whilst trying to avoiding stabbing myself. Throughout my time here, i have commented to numerous doctors about the Samoans high pain threshold. While getting stitches they get given local anaesthetic but at home, if they were in pain they would give some more, here they dont, and just say, 'well it is painful', which leaves pts gripping the edges of the bed and biting their tongue as hard as they can. So they are tough skinned..and also because most walk around bare foot..their skin esp on their feet is very tough. The underside of my feet are literally black....as everytime i wash them...i then walk around and they get black again. I might have to bleach them when i get back!
One last hospital thing.......
We went to take a kid with meningitis..the one i mentioned a few posts ago..who we saw in Savaii. We went to take her for a CT..which is a recent addition to the hospital here in Apia. The doctor sedated the kid and then we took her down to CT. The only problem was we couldnt actually get into the CT room as the door had become jammed. The doctor we were with asked us if we were any good at picking locks..to which i had to admit that i didnt have any experience..apart from that fact that i managed to break the key in my lock on my bedroom door at uni this yr...its still in the lock..oops.
She then got a knife and tried to open the door..but she only succeeded in breaking off the knob! So we were stuck. We took kid back to the ward. About an hr later we got a call saying the door had now been prised open. The problem now was that the kid was no longer sedated and was very irritable and screaming. We gave her some more sedative and the CT was done. We don't know the results yet, as there was no radiographer there so it wont be intepreted until Monday which would be 4 days.
Also saw an emergency Caeserean Section yesterday, as we went down to be part of the neonatal resus team. The baby came out after a bit of tugging and we took it to the other room. We helped warm the baby, and as it was cyanosed the doctor bagged her, and she asked what the baby's heart rate was. It was pretty cool that i could feel the unmbilical cord and calculate the heart rate from feeling the umbilical cord pulsating..no need to even feel a radial pulse or the heart.
Sorry for not much non-hospital news
Mamma Mia was good the other day. The great thing about the cinema here is that there are no adverts. At the scheduled time, there is about 5 minutes of trailers for upcoming films and then the film just starts. This means you have to arrive early for the film as opposed to in England when one purposefully arrives late to avoid the adverts!
We are now planning NZ and looking forward to travelling there...though i am very sad to leave Samoa!
Faafetai (Thank you) for all your news etc while ive been here
hopefully ill be able to write once or twice more before i leave..but i dont know what will happen in NZ while travelling. You may just have to wait until i get back to hear about that....this could take years lol
I could start telling you about the Samoan tatoos! lol..just trying to think of non-med stuff as probably bored most people to death by now..and not there to resucitate everyone!
The men get a tatoo which is from thei belly button to their knees, literally like a pair of shorts. It takes approximately 48 hours and is done over a period of 1 to 2 weeks. It is worn as a sign of courage and manliness really. Some women also have them but they get a lighter tatoo with stars etc and not all coloured in like some men. Tatooing is massive here and its hard to find a Samoan without one.
There is also an fascinating cultural tradition here where if a family only has boys, the last one is brought up as a girl. They do all the womanly tasks...yes..like cooking, cleaning.....etc. for all the sexist men out there....Jonathan etc! not mentioning any names lol!
They try and look like women but they are not like the fafafinas here, who are transvestites. We treated a man in outpatients yesterday who was a man, but had female traits. So he was one of the ones who has been brought up as a woman. It said on the medical notes, Male, but i didnt know whether when asking questions to his friend, whether to say he or she, as i am unsure if they change their names etc. There are many of these men, who you see around town and though you can tell they are men, they aren't transvestites and will dress in t-shirt and shorts, but there faces are feminine and they will paint their nails and change their hair etc
An interesting point to leave on..and im going to try and find out more about it....
I better start getting my woolies out for NZ..though from what ive seen on the BBC website..the weather has been pretty good in England!
Much Love
Sarah xxxx
We have hit the hospital hard this week and i have been doing paediatrics in the morning and A and E in the afternoons or evenings.
Now we have been on paediatrics for a while, the intern gives us a file and we go and see patients on the ward round by ourselves. It is scary as she often goes on what we say and find on clinical examination but it has taught me to trust what i think. Eg if i think there is reduced air entry on one side, then i say so. Whereas before i wouldnt have the confidence to and would think it was just me hearing things wrong. I need to get more fine tuned to paediatric heart murmurs but it is so easy to get distracted when you have cute babies staring up at you with their wide eyes and tugging on your stethoscope. I need to learn the Samoan word for vomit and diarrhoea though, as it has lead to some interesting sound effects this week when i try and take a history from patients and ask if they have vomited. It goes like, 'Have you been sick? (Blank Face)....'Have you thrown up/vomited?'...(Blank Face).....'Can you keep your food down?'...more blanks...i then have to precede to pretending to throw up and ask if that has happened to them! I get greeted with an amused/confused smile and they just say 'i dont know again'! So it looks like i need to either perfect the action or just find out the Samoan word!
We did an evening shift last night at A and E. It was suprisingly quiet but perked up a bit later on. We saw a lady who was having a spontaneous miscarriage, many kids with bronchiolitis, and a few patients who needed stitches following rugby incidents, dog bites etc. We watched the doctor do some stitches and he very kindly took the time to show us how to do stitches. The problem then was that there was no one left who needed stitches..so we resorted to practising our stitches with some thread around a drip stand! At about 10.30pm boy came in who had been fishing for crabs..i dont know what you call people who collect crabs...fishing seems a contradiction lol!.Seafooding or something! He had fallen and had a nasty cut on his foot and had severed a tendon, which meant that he was unable to lift his foot towards his body. The doctor repaired the tendon and then we got a go at stitching. Like everything.....when you arent doing it..it looks quite easy..however i soon discovered the toughness of Samoan skin when i tried to get the needle through, whilst trying to avoiding stabbing myself. Throughout my time here, i have commented to numerous doctors about the Samoans high pain threshold. While getting stitches they get given local anaesthetic but at home, if they were in pain they would give some more, here they dont, and just say, 'well it is painful', which leaves pts gripping the edges of the bed and biting their tongue as hard as they can. So they are tough skinned..and also because most walk around bare foot..their skin esp on their feet is very tough. The underside of my feet are literally black....as everytime i wash them...i then walk around and they get black again. I might have to bleach them when i get back!
One last hospital thing.......
We went to take a kid with meningitis..the one i mentioned a few posts ago..who we saw in Savaii. We went to take her for a CT..which is a recent addition to the hospital here in Apia. The doctor sedated the kid and then we took her down to CT. The only problem was we couldnt actually get into the CT room as the door had become jammed. The doctor we were with asked us if we were any good at picking locks..to which i had to admit that i didnt have any experience..apart from that fact that i managed to break the key in my lock on my bedroom door at uni this yr...its still in the lock..oops.
She then got a knife and tried to open the door..but she only succeeded in breaking off the knob! So we were stuck. We took kid back to the ward. About an hr later we got a call saying the door had now been prised open. The problem now was that the kid was no longer sedated and was very irritable and screaming. We gave her some more sedative and the CT was done. We don't know the results yet, as there was no radiographer there so it wont be intepreted until Monday which would be 4 days.
Also saw an emergency Caeserean Section yesterday, as we went down to be part of the neonatal resus team. The baby came out after a bit of tugging and we took it to the other room. We helped warm the baby, and as it was cyanosed the doctor bagged her, and she asked what the baby's heart rate was. It was pretty cool that i could feel the unmbilical cord and calculate the heart rate from feeling the umbilical cord pulsating..no need to even feel a radial pulse or the heart.
Sorry for not much non-hospital news
Mamma Mia was good the other day. The great thing about the cinema here is that there are no adverts. At the scheduled time, there is about 5 minutes of trailers for upcoming films and then the film just starts. This means you have to arrive early for the film as opposed to in England when one purposefully arrives late to avoid the adverts!
We are now planning NZ and looking forward to travelling there...though i am very sad to leave Samoa!
Faafetai (Thank you) for all your news etc while ive been here
hopefully ill be able to write once or twice more before i leave..but i dont know what will happen in NZ while travelling. You may just have to wait until i get back to hear about that....this could take years lol
I could start telling you about the Samoan tatoos! lol..just trying to think of non-med stuff as probably bored most people to death by now..and not there to resucitate everyone!
The men get a tatoo which is from thei belly button to their knees, literally like a pair of shorts. It takes approximately 48 hours and is done over a period of 1 to 2 weeks. It is worn as a sign of courage and manliness really. Some women also have them but they get a lighter tatoo with stars etc and not all coloured in like some men. Tatooing is massive here and its hard to find a Samoan without one.
There is also an fascinating cultural tradition here where if a family only has boys, the last one is brought up as a girl. They do all the womanly tasks...yes..like cooking, cleaning.....etc. for all the sexist men out there....Jonathan etc! not mentioning any names lol!
They try and look like women but they are not like the fafafinas here, who are transvestites. We treated a man in outpatients yesterday who was a man, but had female traits. So he was one of the ones who has been brought up as a woman. It said on the medical notes, Male, but i didnt know whether when asking questions to his friend, whether to say he or she, as i am unsure if they change their names etc. There are many of these men, who you see around town and though you can tell they are men, they aren't transvestites and will dress in t-shirt and shorts, but there faces are feminine and they will paint their nails and change their hair etc
An interesting point to leave on..and im going to try and find out more about it....
I better start getting my woolies out for NZ..though from what ive seen on the BBC website..the weather has been pretty good in England!
Much Love
Sarah xxxx
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Rest of Savaii.....prescribing a McDonalds
First of all apologies it has taken me almost a week to write about Savaii.
I will show everyone pics when i get back and can tell everyone all about it....will bore everyone galore! We went up a mountain called Matavanu. It wasnt as much the mountain/volcano which was great, as the man who ran it. He was called Da Craterman.....and was an amazing guy. He seems a legend in Samoa and was hilarious. He got in the car with us to drive with us up the crater and guide us, but he stopped halfway and pulled some plants and made them into crowns. We all wore the spiky plants on our heads so that we were 'Princesses of Da Crater'! The view looking into the crater was great and photos cant do it justice! Lastly re Savaii, we went on a local bus for the first time. They are very trusting here...it is an old wooden bus rather like the yellow American school buses. You get on and pay when you get off but it is up to the passenger how much they pay, as everyone here is honest! Also there are no bus stops so you can just get on and off wherever you want which is great as it basically is door to door service. However at busy times, everyone has to sit on each others laps so that the bus can hold as many people as hospital. White people in Samoa are called 'palagai' and they are nice and give us our own seats lol unless the bus is really packed!
We were on the bus, which i forgot to mention has subwoofer speakers which pump out the latest music so its like a school disco on the bus lol! The lady in front of us suddenly said something in Samoan to the driver. He promptly pulled over, she got off and went to the street shop, chatted to her friend while we all waited. After 5 minutes she then got back on the bus, thanked the driver and we continued our journey! Luckily that didnt happen to many times as we would never have got anywhere!
We got back from Savaii on Friday afternoon and then went with friends from where we are living to watched the AFL (Aussie Football) final. Some of the med students here are Australian and their team was in the final. I remember trying to learn about AFL when we went to Australia 2 winters ago to watch the Ashes, but had forgotten most of it. We watched it in a sports bar here, and for once it was full of white people. There are lots of Australians who have settled over ehre, so it was packed and a great atmosphere. If only they showed the Premier League here, but it would mean them opening at like 3am in the morning......and hardly any English people here. We always get mistaken for being from NZ or Aus as thats where most white people here are from. There are some other English med students but we havent met any other English tourists as too far away for everyone i think!
We carried on with paediatrics this week so far. We also started going to A and E. As we thought most med students had now left, we thought A and E may be empty and we would get a chance to do stuff. It has been good so far. We got given our own consultation room in outpatients which is same as A and E here. We sat behind our desk and saw the pts. We took as good a history as we could as most of them did not understand what we were asking as there English wasnt great. We then presented the history and examination findings to a doctor who discussed them with us and then we wrote prescriptions which she then signed. I saw a lady with dengue fever but due to language problem, i didnt realise she actually had quite obvious dengue from her symptoms. I then was told to take blood for dengue serology but this cant be analysed in Samoa. The blood gets sent to Australia and results take 3 weeks. As dengue fever is caused by a virus, antibiotics are no good to treat it so the treatment is rehydration, so pts dont need to be in hospital. It is a notifiable disease though and the doctor said that there is an outbreak in Samoa at the moment of dengue. They have had approx 250 cases in the past month, so we need to be very wary of mosquitoes.
Cant remember all my news as trying to condense it all...hmm
back to A and E
we were in A and E again yesterday afternoon It was so quiet, i think we are good luck charms for the Drs and people of Samoa not to get ill lol..or they are scared of seeing us 'palagi'!
As we were about to leave, a mother came in with a 1 wk old baby. One look at the baby, and the Dr rushed her into the resus area. The baby was ashen grey and really cyanosed (blue). It was breathing about 70 times/min and really struggling to get air into its lungs. At one poiont it stopped breathing, but i learnt with babies that need stimulation to breathe so need to tickle their feet etc.
It was horrible with the family standing there watching everyone try to help the baby breathe
The baby's SATS were 69% whe she came in, but gradually went up. I had to hold the oxygen mask for the baby as there were no masks small enough for it. I saw the baby on the ward round today..and she is much better. They think she has neonatal sepsis but with appropriate treatment, hopefully will be okay.
A man then limped in with a stab wound on his leg. It looked like a small but deep stab wound but it had happened about 5 hrs earlier and he was in lots of pain. The Dr showed us how to stitch, so that we will hopefully do it ourselves next time!
Today i went to teaching at 8am where there was a forensice pathologist talking about how to present yourself in court and he then showed some very gruesome photos of how people died which made us med students and all the Drs try hard to keep our just eaten breakfasts down.
I then did paediatrics WR, frantically scribbling everything in the notes. It has got to the point now, when i look at the kid's notes that i can just see my writing from the previous days etc. At least it means i can read it lol!
i then had to admit a child by myself. I took the history and did the examination. I wasnt confident of my examination findings, especially as the 1 yr old wouldnt stop crying. She only had to look at me and would cry! I had multiple listens to her lungs and chest. I then asked the Dr to double check and was pleased that my findings were the same as hers as i thought they were a bit unusual. I then had to write my diagnosis and management plan. It is odd here that no one wanted me to present the history or counter sign my history taking. They just told me to see the kid and take a hx, examination and admit her. Hopefully i did it right and did my best, and hopefully the kid who i diagnosed with pneumonia will start getting better on IV antibiotics.
I nearly forgot about the McDonalds! It was funny today on WR. There is a kid in the hospital with typhoid. he is doing really well but his dad said today that he didnt like the hospital food so wasn't eating. So the Dr prescribed him a McDonalds. She told the dad to take him to McDonalds and then come back to the hospital. So i will see tomorrow if that did the trick!
Off to see Mamma Mia at the cinema tonight....ive already seen it in Brighton, but like it, and will be good to tap the feet to again. Going in to A and E tomorrow eve so hopefully will be busier and may get to do some suturing........Samoans beware
Keep facebooking, emailing etc
Sarah xxxx
I will show everyone pics when i get back and can tell everyone all about it....will bore everyone galore! We went up a mountain called Matavanu. It wasnt as much the mountain/volcano which was great, as the man who ran it. He was called Da Craterman.....and was an amazing guy. He seems a legend in Samoa and was hilarious. He got in the car with us to drive with us up the crater and guide us, but he stopped halfway and pulled some plants and made them into crowns. We all wore the spiky plants on our heads so that we were 'Princesses of Da Crater'! The view looking into the crater was great and photos cant do it justice! Lastly re Savaii, we went on a local bus for the first time. They are very trusting here...it is an old wooden bus rather like the yellow American school buses. You get on and pay when you get off but it is up to the passenger how much they pay, as everyone here is honest! Also there are no bus stops so you can just get on and off wherever you want which is great as it basically is door to door service. However at busy times, everyone has to sit on each others laps so that the bus can hold as many people as hospital. White people in Samoa are called 'palagai' and they are nice and give us our own seats lol unless the bus is really packed!
We were on the bus, which i forgot to mention has subwoofer speakers which pump out the latest music so its like a school disco on the bus lol! The lady in front of us suddenly said something in Samoan to the driver. He promptly pulled over, she got off and went to the street shop, chatted to her friend while we all waited. After 5 minutes she then got back on the bus, thanked the driver and we continued our journey! Luckily that didnt happen to many times as we would never have got anywhere!
We got back from Savaii on Friday afternoon and then went with friends from where we are living to watched the AFL (Aussie Football) final. Some of the med students here are Australian and their team was in the final. I remember trying to learn about AFL when we went to Australia 2 winters ago to watch the Ashes, but had forgotten most of it. We watched it in a sports bar here, and for once it was full of white people. There are lots of Australians who have settled over ehre, so it was packed and a great atmosphere. If only they showed the Premier League here, but it would mean them opening at like 3am in the morning......and hardly any English people here. We always get mistaken for being from NZ or Aus as thats where most white people here are from. There are some other English med students but we havent met any other English tourists as too far away for everyone i think!
We carried on with paediatrics this week so far. We also started going to A and E. As we thought most med students had now left, we thought A and E may be empty and we would get a chance to do stuff. It has been good so far. We got given our own consultation room in outpatients which is same as A and E here. We sat behind our desk and saw the pts. We took as good a history as we could as most of them did not understand what we were asking as there English wasnt great. We then presented the history and examination findings to a doctor who discussed them with us and then we wrote prescriptions which she then signed. I saw a lady with dengue fever but due to language problem, i didnt realise she actually had quite obvious dengue from her symptoms. I then was told to take blood for dengue serology but this cant be analysed in Samoa. The blood gets sent to Australia and results take 3 weeks. As dengue fever is caused by a virus, antibiotics are no good to treat it so the treatment is rehydration, so pts dont need to be in hospital. It is a notifiable disease though and the doctor said that there is an outbreak in Samoa at the moment of dengue. They have had approx 250 cases in the past month, so we need to be very wary of mosquitoes.
Cant remember all my news as trying to condense it all...hmm
back to A and E
we were in A and E again yesterday afternoon It was so quiet, i think we are good luck charms for the Drs and people of Samoa not to get ill lol..or they are scared of seeing us 'palagi'!
As we were about to leave, a mother came in with a 1 wk old baby. One look at the baby, and the Dr rushed her into the resus area. The baby was ashen grey and really cyanosed (blue). It was breathing about 70 times/min and really struggling to get air into its lungs. At one poiont it stopped breathing, but i learnt with babies that need stimulation to breathe so need to tickle their feet etc.
It was horrible with the family standing there watching everyone try to help the baby breathe
The baby's SATS were 69% whe she came in, but gradually went up. I had to hold the oxygen mask for the baby as there were no masks small enough for it. I saw the baby on the ward round today..and she is much better. They think she has neonatal sepsis but with appropriate treatment, hopefully will be okay.
A man then limped in with a stab wound on his leg. It looked like a small but deep stab wound but it had happened about 5 hrs earlier and he was in lots of pain. The Dr showed us how to stitch, so that we will hopefully do it ourselves next time!
Today i went to teaching at 8am where there was a forensice pathologist talking about how to present yourself in court and he then showed some very gruesome photos of how people died which made us med students and all the Drs try hard to keep our just eaten breakfasts down.
I then did paediatrics WR, frantically scribbling everything in the notes. It has got to the point now, when i look at the kid's notes that i can just see my writing from the previous days etc. At least it means i can read it lol!
i then had to admit a child by myself. I took the history and did the examination. I wasnt confident of my examination findings, especially as the 1 yr old wouldnt stop crying. She only had to look at me and would cry! I had multiple listens to her lungs and chest. I then asked the Dr to double check and was pleased that my findings were the same as hers as i thought they were a bit unusual. I then had to write my diagnosis and management plan. It is odd here that no one wanted me to present the history or counter sign my history taking. They just told me to see the kid and take a hx, examination and admit her. Hopefully i did it right and did my best, and hopefully the kid who i diagnosed with pneumonia will start getting better on IV antibiotics.
I nearly forgot about the McDonalds! It was funny today on WR. There is a kid in the hospital with typhoid. he is doing really well but his dad said today that he didnt like the hospital food so wasn't eating. So the Dr prescribed him a McDonalds. She told the dad to take him to McDonalds and then come back to the hospital. So i will see tomorrow if that did the trick!
Off to see Mamma Mia at the cinema tonight....ive already seen it in Brighton, but like it, and will be good to tap the feet to again. Going in to A and E tomorrow eve so hopefully will be busier and may get to do some suturing........Samoans beware
Keep facebooking, emailing etc
Sarah xxxx
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