what’s up…

so i’m into my 4th week as a 3rd year medical student and orthopaedics being my first surgical ward i was attached too, i was still hanging around there from time to time. waking up for rounds at 730am in the morning has been of late a bit of a challenge but hopefully that will get better with time and practise. i’m officially 3 weeks without internet at home and this sucks. its amazing how much one has relied on the World Wide Web to get things down, to get connected, to catch up with multiple friends at the same time, to get updated with the latest news around the world, etc etc. not being able to surf the various medical blogs has taken its toll too…

Being a guide

last weekend i went for the annual Transition Residential Weekend camp for the freshmen of Monash Medical School. It was great. Got to know some really nice year 1s. its great to know how much one has grown since entering medical school and having newbies looking up to you and for once listening to your advice! and say, woah, he’s a 3rd year!

The Learning Curve .

I’m really learning quite a bit with surgical diseases and borrowed this book called Hamilton Bailey’s Demonstrations of Physical Signs in Clinical Surgery.. i think its fantastic with lots of pictures of tell tale signs of surgical diseases.

we had IV cannulation, Basic Life Support, and Venepuncture workshops thus far. i would be looking forward to putting in an IV for the anaesthesist nurse and the urinary catheter each time before an operation starts from now on, if they allow me!

Interesting patients

bedside tutorials are always fun but its evident when the serum cortisol levels in our bloods rise. “So, tell me what the differential diagnoses for this patient?” Pimping is a great way to learn, though. We got a patient with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome with the trademark black dots on his lips like these:

He had to have a colectomy done.

Blog carnivals

Yea! Grand Rounds would be coming to this blog on the 25th of March, just after Easter. Maybe i will come up with an Easter theme or something, we’ll see how it goes. I don’t want to make it religious or anything; medicine being universal.

Maintaining SurgeXperiences hasn’t been easy but i’m glad we are coming to nearly 16 editions now. I do hope it can continue and bloggers can volunteer to host. Its easy to understand the lack of it, surgery being a time-consuming specialty and outside of work, surgical staff and surgeons would rather spend time pursuing hobbies and spending time with their families. Nevertheless, this has helped us learn quite a bit from one another, from a variety of cultures and countries and i want to continue to see it as a worthwhile effort. So hopefully it will grow from strength to strength.

Thanks for listening, it’s been a pleasure. Off to the gym now.