My Twisted Mind

Please leave a note doctor

2008-09-12T21:58:00.005+01:00

Just another day at work.

There I was writing in the notes of a patient I had just reviewed, when out of the corner of my eye I spot the gentleman in Bed 6 (let's call him John) sit up, pull his covers off him, and proceed to get out of his bed. He walks towards me and my notes-trolley, stands directly across me with the trolley between us, looks sternly at my face, and says:

"You aren't welcome here."

Wha... I'm sorry? What did you say?

*louder* "You aren't welcome here."

But I'm a doctor!

"You still aren't welcome in other people's houses."

But this is a hospital!

"This is a hospital?"

Yes, and I'm a doctor. I work here.

"Why am I in hospital?"

Because you've been very ill.

"Oh, that's alright then."

John then slowly turns around, walks back to his bed, gets rid of his slippers, lies down and pulls the covers over himself again and goes back to sleep.

15 minutes later, it's John's turn to be reviewed. He's sleeping, so I walk over to his bed, and turn on the reading lamp. He doesn't wake up, so I touch his arm gently. His eyes open immediately and he turns to look at me.

"I remember you."

*how nice...* Uh-huh, and who am I?

"You're that doctor."

Yes I am. And how are you today?

"Very well, until you woke me up."

But if I didn't wake you up, I wouldn't be able to speak to you to find out how you are?

"Yes, I understand that. But next time, when you want to speak to someone and they're asleep, you should leave a note saying, 'I've been here to speak to you but you were asleep, I'll be back to speak to you later.' It's only polite you know?

Alright, next time I'm here to see you and you're asleep, I'll leave a note saying that I was here to see you but you were asleep and I'll be back later. Is that agreeable?

"Yes, very agreeable."

Good, so how are you today?

"Very well thank you, at least until you woke me up."

Good. I'm glad to hear that you were feeling well until I woke you up. Is there anything else bothering you?

"No, I was perfectly well, until you woke me up."

Very good then. Have a nice day John. I'll see you later tomorrow.

"No, I can't have a nice day. Now that you've woken me up, I shall have to get out of bed and get dressed and then do what I have to do."

But you can always go back to sleep.

"No I can't. Because you've woken me up."

Right. John, I'm very sorry I woke you up, but there's nothing to stop you from going back to sleep. I'm going to turn off the light and write in your notes and you can go back to sleep. So I'll leave you be for now, and have a nice day. Alright?

"No, I'll never get back to sleep now that you've woken me up."

Goodbye John.

I turn off the light, walk back to the notes-trolley and grab his obs chart on the way. When writing in the notes:

Obs stable. Apyrexial. Sats 97% oA. HR 78. RR 14. Dementia worsening.

The rest is confidential. Strictly, strictly confidential.

Prescription

2008-08-28T01:06:00.002+01:00

On the acute admissions ward:

Staff Nurse: Hey doc, could you write this discharge prescription for me?

Me: Huh? Ok, sure.

*takes drug kardex and starts to write*

Registrar: *sitting in front of me, looks over my shoulder, looks at what I'm writing, and looks over my shoulder again*

Me: *stops writing and looks over my shoulder, sees SN now with her glasses on leaning forward and squinting at the prescription pad, trying very hard to read my writing*

SN: Sorry doc, I don't normally look over shoulders but it's because you're still a baby doctor, you know?

Reg: *bursts out laughing*

Me: *WTF???*

A lady is dead

2008-08-21T22:33:00.005+01:00

And, in another universe, she wouldn't be.

She had walked into the hospital for an ERCP, but she didn't walk out 2 days later.

Her serum amylase levels were over 5k and no one did a thing.

Acute pancreatitis.

Because no one knew.

Which is not exactly true.

The lab had phoned the clinical investigation unit (CIU) nurses to tell them about the blood results. The CIU nurse had phoned up my ward to relay what the lab people had just said. And the nurse on my ward had told...

A doctor

One of the doctors.

But who?

Which doctor?

Because none of us, the three doctors who were on the ward, can recall ever being told about this lady's amylase levels.

Could one of us have been told, a passing remark carelessly forgotten and set aside by a brain already flustered and overworked, a cursory sentence, that could have been:

'We've got this new lady coming in from the CIU doctor. Her amylase levels are 5k by the way.'

'Hmm? Uh, ok.'

And the doctor resumes what he or she was doing, not even looking up at the nurse to acknowledge that the message had gone home, too focused at the task at hand, which could have been as simple as trying to decide what antibiotic to prescribe, or whether or not Mr X should go home with some zopiclone to help him sleep.

And the lady feels perfectly fine, eating and chatting, not at all unwell, until 1900 when all the ward doctors are away, the last one having left a mere 30 minutes before, when her blood pressure drops and she loses consciousness. Yeah, she was feeling a bit of discomfort some time before she loses consciousness, but who doesn't feel a bit uncomfortable after a procedure.

And never regains it.

The on-call doctor is paged. He arrives and assesses the situation. He's a busy man. He still has 4 new admissions to the acute medicine ward to see. He takes a look at her observations chart. He asks the nurses about her. He writes her up for some fluids. Lady doesn't even have a cannula in her. Did he take a look at her blood results and conclude that she had acute pancreatitis?

I don't know.

Lady goes into cardiac arrest. Arrest team called. Lady dies. Despite their best efforts.

It's the weekend. Ward doctors find out about her death 2 days later.

And we ask ourselves the same question over and over again.

"Was I the one who was told about this lady's amylase levels?"

I don't know. It wasn't me. I don't think so. Can't remember ever being told that.

Malpractice? Mis-management? Negligence?

Who is to be blamed?

A lady is dead.

She should still be alive.

Shadowing, again

2008-06-30T01:56:00.003+01:00

I'm getting an introduction to what I'll be doing this August, and I can't say that I'm enjoying myself very much at the moment. Starting work doesn't seem as fun as it was half a year ago. I sometimes wish I was back in 1st year, with no worries, no stress, and no responsibilities. For now, work seems boring. Boring and stressful. Yeah, I know. Weird combination. Probably the only form of excitement I get will be during consultant ward rounds, assuming they will ask me difficult, hard to answer questions about what I should have done (or shouldn't have done), and whether or not I've found a patient for next week's education meeting case presentation.

It's 0200 at the moment, my mobile broadband download limit is running out, and I should have finished reading those 'safe prescribing' notes that have been lying on the table since 0030. I'm tired, and I'm so looking forward to my 2-and-a-half weeks back in M'sia after the graduation ceremony in July. Yeah, 2-and-a-half-weeks. Sigh.

Conversation

2008-06-12T21:52:00.003+01:00

Registrar: It's such a hassle buying a house these days.
Me: Oh, I wouldn't know. Is the house in Rochdale?
Registrar: God, no! You're new here aren't you?
Me: >.<

DotA conversations

2008-05-30T20:08:00.004+01:00

I've been playing a lot of DotA the past week. Since the portfolio submission anyway. And we got Raf to start playing too.

Raf: Hey, what's "-ms"
Me: That shows you your movement speed.
Raf: Shows in what? Miles per hour?
Us: *ROLF*

Raf: WHYLAR I KEEP DYING???!!!

Raf: How much is 'eaglehorn'? 3000 pounds ar?
Us: What???

Raf: I got 5 kills 'kay...
Us: Yeah, yeah... K-S K-S...
Raf: What is K-S?!
Us: Aiyah, K-S is K-S lar...
Raf: *googles "KS"* Killing spree ar?
Us: Wtf??? ROFL!

Raf: Hey, where's the secret garden again?
Us: What?!
Raf: The place in the forest where you buy 'perseverance'
Us: Ah...

Raf: MAH-CI-BAI enchantress killed me again!!!

It's great that the exams are over. It seriously is. Back to DotAing!

Portfolio exam

2008-05-23T11:05:00.002+01:00

I passed.

But some of us didn't. I wish them all the best in the resit.

Onco Ward

2008-04-25T21:43:00.010+01:00

*edited*
*edited again*

So far...

Venflons put in: >38
Bloods taken: >70
Chest drains: 2
Ascitic drains: 1
Discharge scripts: 19
Rectal exams: 5
Clerk-ins: 14
Gloves used: >250
Distended abdomens palpated: 9
Drug rep lunches: 5
Friendly junior doctors: 6
Friendly registrars: 4
Friendly consultants: 2
Helpful pharmacists: 1
Annoying Professors: 1
Screwed-up unfair assessments: 1

Incompetent?

2008-04-15T01:20:00.006+01:00

There are times when I lie awake in bed at night wondering if I'm going to be a competent doctor when I graduate. I was supposed to have acquired 'self-study' and 'lifelong learning' skills in IMU, and here in Dundee, I have been thought to reflect on what I've learnt.

A couple of months ago, several of us, all 5th year students, were discussing the 5th year UniofDd curriculum. We arrived at the conclusion that current 5th year curriculum can in fact be shortened from approximately 30 weeks (including holidays), to a mere 12 weeks. And that's being generous.

Current 5th year curriculum:

2 theme special study modules (ssm), 4 weeks each, total of 8 weeks
2 clinical ssms, 4 weeks each, total of 8 weeks
2 house officer shadowing blocks, 4 weeks each, total of 8 weeks
1 rural GP block, total of 4 weeks.
Grand total of 28 weeks.

My curriculum:

1 GP block. 4 weeks.
2 shadowing blocks. 8 weeks.
Grand total: 12 weeks.

As you may have noticed, I have completely eliminated all special study modules. All the ssms I've attended, barring the current one, have been interesting, but ultimately, that's all they are, interesting. My current ssm is just crap.

The current uniod curriculum emphasizes reflection. Therefore, I propose that 4 weeks which would otherwise have been wasted on ssms be used for reflection. Preferably somewhere warm and sunny. Maybe even tropical. Somewhere where we can reflect on all our deficiencies and incompetencies and somehow be inspired to rectify these defects. And the remaining 12 weeks of 5th year would then be spent doing something useful.

Or, why not have us graduate right after the above grand total of 12 weeks. The rest of the year could then be spent doing clinical attachments, gaining actual work experience, learning more about medicine and surgery than we're actually expected to know, adding to our knowledge, to the ultimate effect that we'll be slightly more competent doctors.

The current UniofDd policy of producing doctors competent enough to work as house officers is just wrong. A consultant I was speaking to claims that during his 5 years of medical school, he was performing appendectomies and actively assisting in major surgery. He used to play an active role in the management of patients in the hospital, not just stand and stare like us. Where have those days gone? To be able to scrub in just to stand closer to the operating table here in the UniofDd has become a privilege, and is no longer part of the curriculum. In fact, 'scrubbing and gowning' is just another box to be signed in our books (more on these books later, not today).

In 5th year, we have to write glorified essays known as case discussion on a variety of topics, and we are provided with guidelines to help up write these essays. One such guideline, when discussing appropriate references for our essays, states, "The USA is not always right", referring to the quality of journal articles and other resources.

It is my opinion that they aren't always wrong. And, and, the UK is not always right either. The UniofDd medical curriculum would benefit if the brilliant, smart, and wonderful individuals in the medical education department would observe how things are done in other countries and incorporate the better elements of their medical programmes into the UniofDd curriculum. And then they should get rid of 90% of all this reflection bullshit. As it is, I am thoroughly disgusted by the quality of education I'm receiving, and the sooner I'm out and far away, the better.

Improving my clinical skills

2008-04-14T01:16:00.005+01:00

Dear Prof Ingkran,

Your special study module, 'Make Your Clinical Skills Better', is, in my honest opinion, the most useless special study module (ssm) a 5th year medical student at the University of Dundee can choose.

This is supposed to be a CLINICAL ssm, not a theme ssm, and therefore, I see no reason as to why I have to present to you a reflective essay on the 12 Dundee medical school outcomes upon which you are going to base my assessment.

Oh wait, hang on. The reason I have to write this essay is because there is really no other way you can assess my clinical skills, is that right? If my clinical skills are crap and there's no one to give me ADVICE or TEACH me new techniques or maybe just OBSERVE me examining patients on the ward and then give me FEEDBACK on how I can actually improve my clinical skills, what's the point of this silly SSM.

If you are going to base my assessment on an essay, I might as well stay at home REFLECTING on the most worthless 5 days I've ever had in medical school and work on the essay instead of showing my face at 0900 till 1700 on the wards. To be honest, I'd rather spend the next 3 weeks watching the grass in the backyard grow instead of wasting my time with this silly ssm.

Yup, the key word is REFLECTING. It's a compulsory word in the vocabulary of any Dundee medical student. In fact, REFLECTING is more important than LEARNING or KNOWLEDGE. I think it's pure rubbish. The only thing that I've ever learnt from reflecting is that I shouldn't waste so much time doing it and instead spend the time writing fictional essays on how reflecting has helped me because these are really important and my grades depend on them.

5th year medical students in Dundee are supposed to spend their final year REFLECTING on their core competencies. What core competencies? Half the 5th years don't even know how to palpate an abdomen properly. Reflecting on core INcompetencies is good, isn't it? If more time was spent instilling the core competencies into medical students, instead of teaching us how to reflect on them, we wouldn't need to reflect on our core competencies to improve them, would we? Reflection is an aid to learning, not a SUBSTITUTE. Please get that into your head Prof Ingkran.

In addition, I would like to suggest that the medical education department carry out a survey amongst the final year students to poll their opinion on all this reflection bullshit. This survey should be completely anonymous and sent out online. But wait, our opinion doesn't matter, does it? That's because we're medical students and we don't really know the best way medical education should be done. You folk ought to know best. And after all, the decisions that really matter aren't made by people with REAL medical degrees.

Yours in good faith,

Casey.

Random Fact Tag

2008-04-06T16:45:00.002+01:00

Tagged by Yuen. Right, let's not drag this out too long, shall we?

The Rules
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List eight (8) random facts about yourself.
3. Tag eight people at the end of this post and list their names.
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs.

RF1:
I'll probably never get abs, ever. It's not from lack of trying though. I suppose I'll just have to be content with one large pack and not six.

RF2:
I have this amazing ability to stay up the entire night and morning doing work and still remain perfectly functional the next day. I am usually a little crabbier after these sessions, and my best friend for the rest of the day is the 1st person who offers me a cup of coffee.

RF3:
A friend here in Dundee calls me a junkie. I apparently get a rush doing last minute work, which is perhaps why I keep doing it. And I have to admit, not doing any last minute work for a while tends to make me feel a little down.

RF4:
I have the amazing ability to consume vast amounts of chocolate and not put on any weight. In fact, I know one other person who can do it, and he eats twice the amount of chocolate I do. And no, I'll not give any figures. Chocolate makes me happy, that's all that's important.

RF5:
I get bored very very easily. There're only a few things that can hold my interest for more than 10 minutes at a time, and sitting down with a textbook for more than 5 minutes is pretty much impossible. I sometimes think that I actually have a mild form of ADHD. But then again, I suppose anyone who's been through medical school is liable to self-diagnose. Just like a neighbour who thinks he may have a mild form of Asperger's.

RF6:
I have a weird ability to befriend the weirdest people I meet, people who don't really have cliques of their own or fit in anywhere else, and who generally behave weird. No examples. Not that I really fit in either, but I'm always thankful that I never ate many (if any) lunches alone back in college or IMU. And of course, I'm always glad to have another friend, however weird you may be.

RF7:
Waking up early in the morning is not usually a problem for me. My subconscious alarm clock seems to know whether or not it's worth waking me up in the morning. If I have to wake up for something important, I will, and I don't even have to try.

RF8:
I'm not a religious person. I like to believe that my moral compass is sound and that it's all I need. Besides, any extra time I have is better spent sleeping.

And that brings us to the end of this post. I'm too lazy to tag anyone, and someone has to end this eventually.

Paracetamol in liver disease

2008-03-30T00:13:00.002+01:00

I came across this article when I was researching painkillers for a recent case discussion.

For all those who're interested, please follow the link below.

Paracetamol in liver disease

Not shpeakin da same ran-guage!

2008-03-21T23:08:00.005+01:00

I sometimes wonder if I have a big, invisible (to me) sign above my head that proclaims:

"I DO NOT SPEAK MANDARIN, NOR DO I UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE."

No, seriously.

When people start talking to each other in Mandarin in a country, i.e. Scotland, where nearly everyone speaks English, one can't help but wonder if what they're talking about is not meant for you to hear.

I sometimes get the impression that these people are in fact, speaking about me. Saying things they don't want me to hear in a language I might not understand.

That I can, in fact, understand every word of Mandarin they're speaking is besides the point. I think it's just plain rude to talk about me when you're literally behind my back. At least have the courtesy to perhaps, move a little further away, or wait till I'm not around. I know I would do that.

This happened quite some time ago, but it still galls me for some reason. And now that it's off my chest, I feel so much better.

And now, to do some backstabbing (+2d6 damage!) of my own.

I should, but find it very hard to, pity these individuals I'm writing about. I have no idea how good their written English is, but the way they speak is horrendous. Harsh and crude, so uncouth and hard on the ears. It is said that the English massacre their own language. The individuals I speak of have diced it and deep-fried the remains in lard. When in Scotland, do as the Scottish do. Adopt their expressions and phrases and learn the local accent. Not only is it important that you understand them, it is very much in your favour if they can understand you as well. The fact that I cringe whenever I hear you speak goes unnoticed, but surely you feel the stares of the people who can only look on in horrified silence whenever you attempt to converse in their national language.

And you're way uglier than me too. That you won't understand half of what I've written here without your digital talking dictionary is a bonus.

I feel SO much better now.

Keeping in touch

2008-02-27T01:24:00.004+01:00

I've just had a long conversation, via w*ndows live messenger, with a friend that I haven't spoken to for 5 years. And it wasn't as if we'd parted on bad terms or anything like that. We've always been good friends, since I was 7 or 8, I think. The last time we spoke was when we were in college, back in 2003, before medical school. I somehow never realised that he was always there, on my messenger list, just another blip on the radar, another person I'd forgotten about, an anonymous name in my address book. Sigh.

And I must admit, if there's a fault with me, it's that I never take the trouble to keep in touch with very many people at all. Other 'faults' include laziness and arrogance, but that's for another time.

Indelible Ink

2008-02-22T18:17:00.003+01:00

I've just read an article on the Agence France-Presse website regarding the use of indelible ink. Yes, indelible ink.

Ballot workers in Malaysia wil apparently be applying indelible ink onto the index fingers of voters, during the upcoming elections in Malaysia on the 8th of March.

I certainly hope the ink is truly indelible. And I would define indelible as: Anything that's likely to take the ink off will most likely take the finger off as well. In other words, there should be no convenient means of removing the ink, and that voters will have to let cell turnover on their fingers eventually shed the skin cells stained by the ink.

Why do I say this? Well, read this article.

Or just type the words "indelible ink" and "pineapple juice" into any search engine.

Yes, apparently the 'indelible ink' used in Sri Lanka was easily removed with the use of pineapple juice.

Interesting. Most interesting. The acid maybe?

May the Force be with you.

Nurses

2008-02-18T18:23:00.003+01:00

A 'joke' I heard on the ward:

House Officer 1: How many nurses does it take to change a light bulb?

House Officer 2: Errrr.... One?

HO1: Nah, try again.

HO2: Ten?

HO1: Nah. Give up?

HO2: Yeah yeah, give up.

HO1: 3.

HO2: Huh?

HO1: Yep. One nurse to take the 1st break. One nurse to take the 2nd break. And one more nurse to bleep the House Officer on-call to change the bulb.

My apologies if you don't understand the joke. But then again, you've probably never experienced the frustration of trying to find a nurse when they're taking their breaks, which seem to last nearly forever; or tearing your hair out when a patient was supposed to get his blood transfusion the night before but didn't get it because the nurse-in-charge 'forgot'; or getting bleeped by a nurse and having to phone him/her back, only to have the phone answered by a different nurse who doesn't know what's going on, and when you finally decide to walk to the ward the call came from in the first place, you find out that the nurse who bleeped you needed something really trivial done, like a discharge script that could have waited till the next morning, or even better, bleeped the wrong house officer about a patient not under his/her care that the house officer knows nothing about. And then, when something goes wrong, it's the doctor's fault, not the nurse's, because doctors don't get any breaks until the ward rounds and jobs are done.

And the first person to comment about how badly nurses get it and how much less they're paid will be struck by a light bulb that an overworked house officer didn't screw in tightly enough.

Sigh. But we do need nurses to do all the things doctors don't, or won't, do.

Paris update, not

2008-02-02T14:44:00.000+01:00

Right.

I been trying for the past 30 or so minutes to unsuccessfully upload the photographs I took of Paris.

I give up, for now.

Unfortunate but true

2008-01-22T01:22:00.000+01:00

Yes, unfortunate but true.

To the great displeasure of the many people who hate me.

I'm not dead.

Although those who used to frequent my blog may think otherwise.

well, I'm very much alive.

And I promise another post very soon.

One with photos.

Of Paris.

As soon as I can get them uploaded properly.

May the Force be with you.

The Impossible is just very very difficult, and exhausting

2007-12-14T03:23:00.001+01:00

Once again I've left myself a 'little' too much work for too late. But I always maintain that these all night typing marathons every 6 weeks are so are what keep me going. But this time, I may have pushed it a little bit too far. Just a little. I might just, just, just, meet the submission deadline. Because unlike last year's case discussions, this year's case discussions are *curses* checked for plagiarism by some fancy software against the millions of journal articles and god-knows what else online, in addition to every piece of work ever submitted to the program. Which means that one has to be really careful when referencing and citing journal articles. Hopefully textbooks aren't on their list. Hopefully. Oh well, back to work. yawn.....

p.s. anyone who wants to know why we went to the Nottingham games is welcome to ask me on windowslivemessenger. I'm just too lazy to post anything regarding it.

Nottingham Malaysian Games

2007-12-09T03:32:00.000+01:00

Right. Above we have a not-very-good picture of 14 extremely unwise individuals who drove down to Nottingham and back to Dundee last weekend. We started off at about 2300 on Friday night, got to Nottingham at around 0800 on Saturday, spent the day there, started driving again at about 1900, and got back to Dundee at 0400 on Sunday.

No, we did not get very much sleep.

And now for several comments...

A convoy is only as fast as the slowest car. And the person driving the slowest car normally has a pretty good reason for driving slowly. Perhaps it's the dark, narrow, single-laned, winding road through the hills that we're on? Or maybe, just maybe, there REALLY is a speed camera a little distance away from the sign that says "50 MPH, SPEED CAMERA". Who knows? One more tip. Please please please DO NOT call the driver on his cell phone to tell him to speed up. The driver is responsible for the safety of his passengers, and does not care if we reach Nottingham late.

Maps are vital. Maps are important. Maps tell us where to go. Correction. The RIGHT kind of maps tell us where we should go. When planning a long driving trip, for example, oh, from Dundee to Nottingham perhaps, it is essential that appropriate maps are used. Road maps of the towns you plan to stop by may be necessary as well. After all, who doesn't know that British road signs are just as bad as the ones in Malaysia? Spending an hour driving around a small town trying to find a route to the highway is not usually recommended. Also note that a good navigator, someone who actually KNOWS how to read a map, is present.

Petrol is important. Without petrol, we wouldn't get anywhere would we? Which is probably why there are petrol stations every 25 miles or so on the major highways. Why pump petrol in the city, where a convoy of 3 cars is nearly bound to be separated due to unpredictable traffic conditions and unfamiliar territory? Much time will be lost trying to regroup. Therefore, my advice would be to hit the highway asap, spend that extra 2 pennies per lite of petrol and pump petrol at a rest station instead of wasting time in the city.

Try not to leave a car behind. Although the drivers are responsible, most passengers have at least one functional eye. Looking-out for each other is good policy. Driving as a convoy in an unfamiliar city is NOT recommended. Traffic lights, roundabouts, and asshole drivers tend to get in the way. If the 'leader' is separated from the rest, he should stop and wait at the first opportunity, not drive off and relay inaccurate directions via cell phone. "Why didn't you follow my car?" is NOT the best thing to say to a lost driver. We all know that he intentionally took a wrong turning because he couldn't see car in front anymore.

Staying alive is generally a VERY good idea. One should not speed up when: a) the roads get darker. b) the roads get narrower. c) when it starts raining. d) when you see a sign saying "CAUTION, WINDING ROAD". I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I'm pretty sure I'd be pretty unhappy if I found out that there's really an afterlife prematurely. Heck, if possible, I'll even make sure that someone finds out if there's an after-afterlife.

Yawn. Bedtime.

May the Force be with you.

JHO shadowing

2007-11-29T00:17:00.000+01:00

I hate clerking patients.
I hate taking bloods.
I hate putting in venflons.
I hate requesting X-rays.
I hate it when radiologists say that they can't give 'my' patient a head CT.
I hate looking for misplaced case notes.
I hate walking behind everyone else during ward rounds.
I hate walking to the hospital on cold, rainy mornings.
I hate pharmacists who speak to me as if it's MY fault that the patient is on cefuroxime instead of ceftriaxone.
I hate 'bed managers' who bug nurses who in turn bug me about expected patient discharge dates.
I hate the smell of shit on the ward.
And I hate hate hate carrying a pager.
Especially when it's NOT even mine!!!

But everything else is great. Especially...
The junior doctors who ask me to help interpret ECGs.
The nurses who offer me chocolates whenever they see me.
The ward assistants who run after my 'missing' patients.
Phlebotomists who need help taking bloods.
Pretending I'm an expert at reading MRI films.
The coffee runs at every opportunity we get.
Playing table-tennis in the doctors mess.
Knowing the right answer to a consultant's question about some obscure disease.
Making the right diagnosis after clerking with no X-ray, no blood results, no ultrasound, and no biopsy.
Patients who thank me after I poke 'em more than once trying to get a venflon in.

Yep. It's certainly more good than bad.

But I hate that god-damned pager. I hate hate hate it.

Yellow!

2007-11-10T20:40:00.000+01:00

Malaysian? Click Here

22 most awful...

2007-10-06T14:24:00.000+01:00

...moments in science fiction.

I don't agree with everything the article says, but it's a pretty good read when the alternative is a book on O&G.

O&G.

SO not my favorite specialty.

Sinusitis and...

2007-10-05T16:15:00.000+01:00

Yep, I had a bout of sinusitis. It wasn't very nice too. And the first symptom I got was pain in my upper left molars and pre-molar, eventually progressing to an excruciating left frontal headache, worse when leaning or bending forward and relieved by... 500 mgs of mefenamic acid. Brilliant stuff it is. But it wasn't the headache that annoyed me. It was the pain in my teeth. It wasn't very painful, but everytime I moved my head, or walked down the stairs it hurt. Just so bloody annoying.

What really worried me was the thought that it might have been a malignant growth in my sinuses. But since I'm all better, it probably isn't.

On to the next topic:

I was at the 'juniors' house the other day for a mooncake festival sort of celebration. But this isn't really about the celebration. It's about the juniors. By 'juniors' I mean the latest batch of IMUians who have come to Dundee.

It so happened that on the very same evening, our landlord was throwing a party for his tenants at the place he put us up in before we moved to our current accommodations.

There was free booze at our landlord's party, and a few of the juniors wanted directions to to the place. This is how the conversation went (heavily edited):

Juniors: Can you give us directions to the place ar?

Senior: Sure, we can draw you a map.

Senior 2: Or even better, if you bring your laptop down, I can show you exactly where it is with googlemaps.

Juniors: No need lar, its okay. Just give us directions.

Senior 1 and 2: Okay. what you do is you take the bus and... bla bla bla bla bla...

Juniors: Errr, where exactly is that ar? Right after the police station and then?

Senior 2: Look, if you bring your laptop out, everything will be SO much easier.

Juniors: No need lar, just tell us clearly can d. We are going to walk there btw.

Seniors: You sure? Ok fine, just give us a pen and paper and we'll draw you a map.

Junior: Takes out his PDA. Here, draw on this.

Seniors: *wtf*. Fine. *draws rough sketch on PDA screen*

Junior: Errr, you sure ar?

Senior: *sigh* If you get us a pen and piece of paper, we'll draw you a map. A BETTER map.

Junior: *looks around the kitchen for a piece of paper, and grabs a serviette i.e. TISSUE PAPER, that has fallen onto the floor and hands it to us. proceeds to look around for a pen, finally finds a marker and passes that to us*

Senior: *cough* Ahem, the marker doesn't work.

'Smarter' junior (who wasn't going to the party): *to other juniors* Look, my room is just round the corner if you guys want to use my laptop...

Junior: No need no need...

Seniors: *sigh sigh sigh*

They didn't go to the party in the end.

But like c'mon. They've got a wireless router which means that there's wifi in the entire house. And they refused to bring a laptop down. But the most pathetic part was when they couldn't even bring us a proper piece of A4 size paper or a ballpoint pen.

Pathetic.

Nap time. Till the next post.

Aceritis indeed

2007-09-17T00:31:00.000+01:00

First documented by by Starghazzer. Usually (mostly) involves Acer laptops.

The following are the symptoms my laptop is manifesting:

1. Weird beeping noise at odd intervals. Usually at night. As many as 3 beeps and hour or 1 beep a week. No apparent causative factors.

2. Webcam does not run unless connected to my USB hub. It ran perfectly well before I bought the USB hub. WTF is going on?

3. Stuck pixel on screen. May get unstuck on its own, always reverts back to being stuck. Very very annoying.

4. It won't detect my external hardisk unless I restart my com with the hardisk connected. It worked fine until about 2 days ago.

5. My 3 USB ports are starting to get a little temperamental. They may or may not detect my various USB devices at random times.

Sigh Sigh Sigh.

I'm reformatting this fella the next chance I get. Probably during the 1 week break before my GP block. Hopefully the various problems will settle down after that.