The Real Life

We're now 1 week into "the real life" of a third-year medical student - ward rounds with lots of standing around, lingering around; brisk-walking up and down from floor to floor and ward to ward with the doctors; clerking patients and reading up their notes, and staying around to check their progress; playing "hide-and-seek" with the doctors in the various wards, since they never seem to want to be found at the first ward you try; sitting in at doctors' offices, waiting; shuttling from place to place after finding out that the timetable has been changed yet again or the doctor-in-charge there has no idea that you're supposed to be there, etc. And in between all that, some lectures and talks, ideal places for you to rest your feet between the rushing around and waiting, and to nod off from tiredness.
All that aside, I'm quite pleased with my experience in the wards so far. Although I have yet to meet the other consultant on the team (away on holiday, and I only saw the present consultant on Tuesday, at a meeting), the specialist registrar, SHO and HOs have been helpful and friendly, giving us suitable patients to clerk, explaining cases and plans of treatment to us, and giving us little tasks to do, in a way to make us feel useful. So in the 4 days, I've fully clerked 2 patients and interviewed about 5 more, seen a difficult phlebotomy (blood-taking) and actually did one myself (thankfully an easy one, on someone with nice juicy veins), seen a terribly jaundiced person, listened to crackles in the chest from pulmonary fibrosis, listened to an unexplained mitral valve murmur, seen a PR done on a poor incontinent old man (and helped clean up, sort of), seen clubbed fingers (oh joy!), felt a palpable lower liver border, listened to a lung cancer's lungs, and carried out a Mini Mental State Examination, among other things. All the while being supported by friendly and patient doctors, nurses and healthcare workers who don't mind explaining things again and again to us, and giving us things to do in double the time they could have finished it in.
Speaking of the MMSE, it was quite sobering to run it on this man, who sounded so conscious but was clearly befuddled by some of the questions given. As you read the questions now, you'd probably find them quite trivial, almost an insult to your intelligence. But imagine that you know them to be trivial, but can't put a finger on the right answer - imagine how frustrating it can be. Is asking these questions humane? The patient, especially the alert ones, are made even more aware of and frustrated about their shortcomings, and by the time 30 questions are finished, they could have dropped down into the quaggy pit of despair and self-pity. I know I would, if I couldn't answer those questions. Sometimes the things doctors do, may not justify the outcomes. Mercifully, most of the patients who have to go through the set of questions have short memory spans, and forget their incapacity to answer as soon as the questioner shakes their hand and moves off to report his/her findings. My interviewee was staring at the television screen a short while later, as I walked past.
Anyway, I have lots of respiratory stuff to look up and read, after today's productive day. The weekend will bring more events, and more time to put up pictures and write more things. Till then...