Baking Through My Journey As a Doctor to Be

one of my peers fainted and loss consciousness during our anatomy prac and hell that scared the hell out of me. the incident got me thinking.

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it was 2.15p.m. in a thursday afternoon and we were all chatting happily at the dissecting room about an extra finger some people have on their hand and what do doctors usually do to get rid of them merely for cosmestic purposes, whether an extra finger will give you any advantage while playing Play Station (i opted no) and about how we need to have our first aid training again since the certificate is only valid for 2 years. for once we were not late for anatomy prac and had some time to spare :)

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after a brief introduction by everyone's favourite anatomy lecturer, Jenny Hayes, we were given a short presentation by Christian, our Imaging Guru. He too, is a very good lecturer, very kind, very friendly, very patient, making him a much less intimidating lecturer than others. and he looked different yesterday (i'm not the only one who noticed that, and FYI, he's kinda old). We were whispering and kidded about what made him different "maybe he has gained some weight since the last time we saw him" "oh yea, it seems like it, good, that makes him less creepy" oh admit it, making fun of your lecturer is the best way to get some joy out of lecture. you know you agree with me on that.

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we were listening very closely to what Chris were talking about. we ought to because after almost 2 years of med school, i still can't interpret an X-ray or CT scan properly. something that look very much like coccyx to me turn out to be C1 and C2 vertebrae bodies, that's how good i am =p.

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i got even more attracted when he showed us photos of operation of a 74yo male who had tumour in his mouth. how layers of skin and muscles are removed to expose the very huge lump on the base of his left floor of mouth, how the lump was exised, how to avoid hitting the carotid artery and internal jagular vein, how they made a mistake and accidentally severed the thoracic duct and milky white fluid ozzed out to the cavity... there were lots and lots of fleshy, bloody, not-deemed-appropriate-for-public-view-photos being shown and i was utterly amazed. then my peer approach me and another girl friend saying that she felt giddy. We offered to sit her down (we were all standing, it's a dissecting room not a lecture theatre) but she refused to. Since it's pretty common for people to feel nauseated during anatomy prac due to the very unpleasant phenylaldehyde, we let her be. Then half kiddingly, I asked her to wiggle her toes to help circulation of blood pooled at her lower extremities back to her heart. I even asked her not to worry as we'll be holding her so she won't fall even if she fainted. so we did, my right arm under her left armpit, another peer's arm around her waist. we carried on with the lecture.

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more lecture slides, this time the fibula removed from the leg, cut in a V shaped to make it curled and was used to his mandibular bone. He has a full recovery... pretty amazing for and old chap like him. 30 seconds later, i felt something heavy on my side, turned over and saw her 'sinking' onto the ground. for a split second i thought that she was pretending to fall because trust me, she is quite a playful girl. then she kept on sinking. OH SHIT, IT WAS REAL.

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"someone is falling over here!" someone shouted

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then everything started to happen in slow motion. we lied her down very slowly and carefully onto the ground, very clamsily, and totally very ungracefully, (not like what you see in romance movie where the girl falls into the guy's chest, he hold her, lift her up, carrying her like the prince carrying snowhite, then find a nice flat clean floor or table to lie her down, NOTHING like that) i remember kept on calling her name, at least 10 times while putting her down and managed to do nothing else. then a postgraduate student came very quickly to our assistance and he, he KNEW exactly what to do.

"no"

"xxx, wake up! wake up xxx!"

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then FINALLY, she regained her consciousness.

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by that time, the jenny and chris were already by our sides, all kneeling beside her, and her legs were raised by another girl, who i believed is also a post grad. other students (mostly undergrads) did their part too. they all stayed away from us (far enough to give us sufficient air, close enough to see what's happening ;>) well done peeps, thank you so much!

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finally. finally. finally.

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it was a huge huge relief. i've never encountered anything that intense before in my life. she rested for another min or 2 on the floor while Chirs resumed his lecture and 3 of us + jenny went out to get some fresh air.

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we were outside the dissecting room, waiting for her to get better, while a tutor went to get our poor girl a glass of water and Jenny making sure that she's not going to faint again and can get home safely. i am really impressed by the concern and support shown by our teaching staffs. they genuinely, honestly, care. Chris even apologized for showing those slides (eventhough we all know it's not his fault at all). We are a fortunate bunch of people.

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after that we went back to the anatomy prac for another hour before she decided to leave. Both of them went to see the doctor together while i stayed back to do what i do the best - take notes- for everyone of us. thank god things turn out to be okay.

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it was quite a disturbing day. early in the morning, sis woke me up because she had her gastric pain and started to vomit and had diarrhoea again for the 3rd time in a week. i was alerted and bounced of my bed when i was told there was blood in the vomit. we ended up in the ED of st. vincents. sis is okay now and she's on ranitidine. hopefully things like that won happen again.

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like i said, those incidents really got me thinking. apparently, i am not made for all this kind of stuff. "wake up wake up" ??? what kind of first aid is that. that should only occur in korean drama and i was doing that? when a friend collapse? what the hell was i doing? i can't help but kept on laughing (at myself) when i was walking back home yesterday. People must think that i am crazy. and i realize and finally come to accept the fact that no one was born equal, some people was just born more competent than the other, and i, i am in the less competent group :)