Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Lessons



"There is a lesson in almost everything that you do, and getting the lesson is how you move forward. It is how you enrich your spirit."

Being an intern in the pediatric ward means that the bulk of the work is euphemistically termed 'clinical assessement.'  Clinical assessment being a nicer term for the term 'monitoring,' the dirty job that clerks and interns perform as (hopefully) part of the learning experience and perform due to necessity because of the sheer bulk of patients outnumber the nursing staff.  We actually get it easier nowadays, that monitoring of the more stable patients is delegated to the nursing staff and we only monitor the more critical cases.  Compared to internal medicine, where patients can be more cooperative and more stable, pediatrics entails meticulous monitoring of vital signs of patients who are actively resisting all efforts to be held or are so unstable that even close monitoring doesn't do the trick.  I guess the clinical assessment part is one of the reasons that I collapse and stay in a coma after a duty in the ward, missing out on family gatherings and other events.

Okay, this picture was taken prior to Peds, but I'm wearing my 'frogs' suit more often and I look like this 99% of the time

Looking back, there is some gain on my part due to the clinical assessment part of duties in the ward.  Never mind the disparity between the effort and the reward.  There is now some semblance of confidence with my pediatric clinical eye, knowing when a patient is or is not getting better.  I get to call and participate in code blues.  I get to interact with parents (nice calm pro-active ones or rude histrionic indifferent ones) and still reassure them that no, 37.6 does not mean that their kiddo is going to go into seizures anytime soon.  I learn how to stretch my patience further when it's thinner than a fragile sheet of dumpling wrapper.  I get to teach parents how to take better care of their little ones.  I guess those are the lessons for this trying two weeks of my life.  The lessons aren't as fun as the ones I had before, but I hope those lessons are helping me become a better physician.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Girl Crush

Christina Hendricks is my girl crush

Christina Hendricks is among the most amazing actors I've encountered so far. She has the loveliest and most luscious curves and she isn't afraid to flaunt them. She's smart, sensible, sexy, and talented.  Wish more actors were like her. :)

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Satchel Love

Satchel and surgeon ;)
This is a special shout out to Manila Fashion Observer and Schu
Congratulations on the blog anniversary and thank you so much! 

Friday, September 2, 2011

Useless Anxiety

“I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then whenever doubt, anxiety, or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal and soon they'll forget my number.” - Edith Armstrong


I'm having one of those days that I'm feeling bummed and spent.  Blame it on my monthly or what, but I guess the biggest thing that's sapping me of energy is all this anxiety.  I typically tend to get it around the time when I'm shifting in to a new service (like now I'm finishing surgery and moving to otorhinolaryngology) and I don't have an inkling of what's going to happen next or what to expect or what to do. Typical of me to try and seek some semblance of control over events that I totally have no control over. So I spend my seconds, minutes, and hours thinking up a storm about all the worst case scenarios that MIGHT happen, and end up tired and depressed.  It's a habit I have to break soon if I'm ever going to keep my sanity as a physician-in-training.  I'm still on the way to telling myself firmly to stop worrying and let things be.  I have to have a little more faith that the universe won't be throwing disasters my way, and meekly surrender to Divine Providence.


Negativity out, positivity in. Om. Amen.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Four Months Down

Fun! Done with 123 days on internship so far! :)

For those 123 days, I've learned to become a monitoring machine, a med-tech, a counselor, a nurse, a secretary, a social worker, a child psychiatrist, a rectal examiner, a retractor b*tch, a blood runner, a vein stripper, a pseudo-anesthesiologist, an EMT, a rad tech, a bullet extractor, a research assistant, and a nose job model.  A colorful road to becoming a full-fledged doctor don't you think? :)

(Forgive the random rambling. I have a headache and too much fastfood in my blood.)

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Little Blessings

For every whine of every day, I get little blessings in return. Gotta love the Big Person Upstairs for throwing the little surprises to keep my spirits up.


Like I got a Sunday with my family, which is quite rare because the universe somehow conspires to make my duty days fall on Sundays most of the time.  We ate a lovely lunch at The Old Spaghetti House in Robinson's Otis; thin crust cheese and pepperoni pizza, hearty spaghetti, pesto pasta, calamares, nachos, and chocolate chip cookie a la mode.  Our family then headed over to our ancestral home in Sampaloc to celebrate my sister's birthday with pancit palabok and mocha-chocolate cake.  I had a chance to play with our family's lovable askal Cloud, who loved horseplay and belly rubs (and took extra care to keep his paws off my hospital whites.)

Monday found me finishing chart rounds early (as most patients were out-on-pass, given the long weekend), being a research assistant for a greater part of the morning, then off at noon.  My aunt sent me a message inviting me to go around the mall with her, which I accepted.  Spent a good part of my afternoon eating (a delicious grilled burger, chunky fries, enchiladas, and chips), browsing shops, and snagging two new tops.  I also got a haircut (my first in about eight weeks); the stylist happily lopped off about 8 inches of frizzy hair off, leaving me looking about 5 years younger. Teehee.  Since it was late, I opted to go home to the ancestral house in Sampaloc to sleep, but not before watching a bit of TV, eating some cashew roca, and browsing through gossip rags.

Today, again finished chart rounds early, interviewed two more patients for the study, had the funniest encounter in the plastic surgery office (where a patient pointed to my nose and asked for similar nostrils), and observed in the pre-op conference. Lunch was followed by a short nap, then a visit to my friend in Tahilan.  Back at my dorm, I took a nice shower then dinner. Now I'm just checking my email and producing this post.

So far, I've had this great stretch of little blessings and I am more than thankful for everything that came my way.  They are such great pick-me-ups because the previous weeks weren't quite as restful.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Heartless

About 100 days into my internship in the national hospital (also known as 100 days of being a glorified aliping sagigilid or scut monkey), I was ready for a break.  I noticed that I was becoming less compassionate towards patients and their bantays, and such greatly bothered me because I'm usually the person who would find any and every way to make sure that a patient got a radiologic procedure, labs, or medications.  Helping the really needy is a noble job, however, the health care situation here is far from ideal, so things become draining and feel futile after a while.  I guess that truth finally sunk in and has me all but scrambling to get back into the slightly more civilized world of private practice.

I guess it was encountering a certain subset of patients on a daily basis that had me figuratively throwing my hands up in defeat and saying "fuck all this."  Ever heard of the phrase "mahirap tumulong sa mahirap?"  I particularly am bothered by patients (and bantays) who come in and demand top notch care (and whatnot), yet refuse to move a muscle when the time comes to do their part.  We need them to register, go to social services, submit labs, get radiologic requests approved, buy the medications or needs, while we doctors tend to the patient's most immediate needs; some of these bantays are content to watch or want us to do those things mentioned, which is unfair and impossible because we're tending to a good number of other patients who need urgent care as well.  I particularly loathe those people who are exceptionally rude and feel so entitled.  There are times I want to scream at them, "you're not even paying your taxes!"  I guess being constantly exposed to the harsh urban life bestows a certain mean (cue in Taylor Swift now) attitude on them, that they can't help being that way, much to their detriment and our dismay.  In the beginning, I tried to reason with this people in the sweetest possible way, but repeated "fail" moments have me abandoning the attempt.  I'm not ashamed to say that there were times I had to raise my voice and put on a mega-frowny face to get things moving.

Gah, being a doctor is such a thankless job.  I don't want the negativity from this people to influence my life but I think I'm beginning to turn into a heartless automaton bee-yotch.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Graduation Day


I finally and formally appended Doctor of Medicine to my name last Monday.
I felt like everything that happened that day was so unreal but so very happy.
Thank you to everyone who supported me through this wild ride. :)

Monday, March 7, 2011

Doctor of Medicine

I have hurdled the oral revalida.

Praise God.

I can attach M.D. to my name now.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Friends are Love


Okay, so this family photo is not complete but it would have to do for now.  The schedule gods conspired to give me a free day to spend with my barkada from UP Manila.  I hadn't seen most of them in about 3-4 years already, so I was really raring to go.  We went to the Taguig area to celebrate Daal's birthday, first visiting the exhibit of plastinized human bodies entitled "Myth of the Human Body,"  proceeding to enjoy iced coffee and a (long) game of Dutch blitz at the Starbucks store near St. Lukes Global, and then enjoying a sumptuous dinner at 1771 Sentro.  I love my UP family!