life's a beach: a snippet of my 1st clinical postings

assalamualaikum..

writing this post just to tell you readers on my first clinical postings which has ended on last monday (paediatrics postings). it has been a month or so of experiences, lessons, and memories as well.

the first part of my postings began at Udupi. to be exact, at Dr. T.M.A Pai Hospital Udupi. this hospital is the place or should I say an insight to what lies ahead of me in order to become a doctor. first things first, paediatrics is a branch of medicine *for those of you who didn't understand the jargons used by a medic student* which involves the care of basically, childrens. :) right from the 1st day of delivery, when they all first see the world, until they are known as adults. I spent most of my postings here, for about 3 weeks before continuing the 2nd part at Karkala which i will talk about later.

of course the transition from theory based, class-oriented learning to a more practical, hands-on style of learning is quite tough. to be honest, I am intimidated about this approach of learning at first. you have all those necessary knowledge which you have built for the last 2 years, but to apply this knowledge, is a completely different thing. not to mention that you have to rely on yourself for most of the time. of course as expected, the first week of my postings didn't really go well. my first attempt on history taking is horrendous, or horrible if it were to be described. all the information, the complaints, the history got really messed up and scattered all over the paper. -.- and may I remind you this is india I'm talking about, so the initial weeks are very tough especially due to the language barrier. yes, there are some patients or parents that can speak english if not fluently, but they can understand english but mostly you have to speak in the local language (locals speak Kannada) in order to extract information, history and details in order to complete a case or compile a history.

talking to the patients is also quite scary. scary by means that you really don't know what to say, what to ask, or what to do with them. of course I have experienced some voluntary work at hospital back during the a-level days but then it is nothing compared to clinical postings. the hands on experience of getting to talk to that patients, trying to extract infos and to come to a differential diagnosis for each complaints can be intimidating at times. luckily I have wonderful friends in my group that share the same experience along with me.

with dr madhava

yes i know this group is kinda biased. haha. all malays (ok i admit i am melanau :p) except for vairam. why? because all of the guy's names begins with 'mohamad' and mostly 'nur' for girls. so there you go, a tailor made group for a fun postings here in manipal. hehe. patients have taught us a lot, in the sense of being friendly, and at the same time being professional as a doctor to be. and the doctors here are very awesome as well. kind but strict at the same time. we've got ourselves into trouble a few times already, and that is never an exciting thing to go through but sometimes a slap in the face is what we all need as well. (e.g : dr. kunal, dr. asha)

speaking of scolding from the doctors, I was the victim of a (insert a description) doctor during my first day at O&G postings. i was sitting at the bench at the hospital's corridor at that time, waiting for our turn to enter the ultrasound scan room because the girls went in first, so we waited outside. and to avoid awkwardness or basically it is everything that everyone do when they are at a public place, you take your phone out. and out of nowhere this old man (around 50s) tapped my shoulder and suddenly started scolding me and all. -.- talking about this and that, about how a doctor shouldn't do this and that, about how hard it is to pass medical school and blablabla. of course i felt quite battered deep down inside but probably he didn't know that its our 1st day at the O&G department, and he is not our doctor, most likely just another people who went to the hospital as a patient or with the relatives.

to be scolded is fine with me, because some people believe that the method is effective for stamping your authority, or cementing your argument. but honestly if i were to speak, i don't agree with that. raising your voice, getting angry at someone is never a good idea. when you get angry, you started a fire inside you. and 'syaitan' nature is fire, he will get into you and most likely will wind you up into things that you're not supposed to say or do. even if you don't agree with something, you should talk about it in the way that you are able to express your point, but not in a way that it will be seen as negative. but getting scolded once in a while is a good thing to have as well. things don't go smoothly all the time, so a bit of rough patches here and there would be ok with me.

and i cruel reminder to myself, even though this is the 3rd year of MBBS, which seniors say the most enjoyable part of the MBBS course (not really sure if MBBS is enjoyable at all :p), i still have to open the books, and read them, and also make sure that all my basics which I built for the past 2 years, all those subjects (anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, forensic medicine) must be strong and solid. trust me, in a group of 12 people, you don't want to look stupid by not being attentive or not able to answer questions from the doctors. it would be that obvious that you are not studying or simply an idiot. -.- and yes, i do enjoy clinical postings, even it is tiring, but all the experiences seeing patients, procedures, operations etc is totally invaluable compared to reading those stuffs from the books only. here are some more pictures from our postings. *credit for aidurra and vairam for the pictures from their FB albums*