3rd week of Emergency Medicine

I just realized I never got down to blogging about my second ambulance run. Well, the reason is that Emergency medicine is getting busier. Just for the record, for my night run, I saw a case of mild trauma, a febrile shivering lady and an unrevivable elderly gentleman. (And for the day run, I saw 2 cases of mild trauma, a fitting lady and a case of abuse of ambulance services)

If I were to rate all my postings so far, I would put emergency medicine at the top of the list. Because it just rocks la. Now everything in medicine and surgery and orthopedics makes sense.

Just today for example, I saw 2 resuscitations, 2 massive upper GI bleeds, and a couple of major trauma. The busiest I ever saw the CGH A&E. Which is a good and bad thing. Bad for the patients obviously. And partially bad for us because there was too much to see and the doctors were a little too busy. And of course, we tried to participate in the excitement in our clumsy medical student-way: taking bloods, staying out of the way, taking history, staying out of the way, grabbing random items, staying out of the way...

I think I would find it rather funny in retrospect.

First Ambulance Run

I always liked the bright colours and flashing lights of emergency vehicles. So it was a pleasant surprise that as part of my emergency medicine posting, I got a chance to actually sit in an ambulance and follow the paramedics on their calls!
I obviously can't disclose what I saw today due to patient privacy issues. All I can say is that there is nothing quite like sitting in an ambulance with its lights flashing and its horns blaring, rushing to the scene of the emergency - the excitement is quite palpable. And most of the times the victims or their family are quite grateful for the timely arrival of the ambulance.
In a recent Reader's Digest survey of Singaporeans, firefighters, doctors, and (if I'm not wrong) paramedics were among the top 10 most trusted profession in Singapore, and they are curiously similar: All 3 professions give us a peace of mind at night (they work night shifts), they are there for us in emergencies, and they also work long hours.
I can imagine them at work now...

A night call in the ED

This will be a short post. Because I have ambulance run tomorrow.
I just experienced my first night call at the ED on saturday night to sunday morning the last weekend. To prepare myself, I slept for 2.5 hours beforehand (because I know I wont the get the luxury next time as a HO), took a leisurely dinner with my family, and arrive at the ED just on time at 11pm.
There were hardly any patients then.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, (I think it was 2 am) we were frantically rushing from one patient to the next, and the doctors hardly had time to teach us. The stroke pathway was activated once and the registrars called the HO who had to rush down to send the patient for a CT brain. We popped into radiology just to take a look, finding it deserted with just a single radiographer on duty.
Outside, the night was quiet.
The night passed slowly, and wished we could hurry it up. So we took a break and had some sandwiches outside the ED, before resuming our work.
Patients arrived sporadically, and we were ready to take bloods from them. But at 4-5am, the resuscitation ward was relatively quiet once more.
Then 8am arrived, and we were free! But patients started swarming in again, and the doctors on the next shift were ready to receive them, just as we packed our stuff and made our way out.
I've thought of a motto for the ED: The ED - always ready for action.

Emergency Medicine

Emergency Medicine is unpredictable. This morning when we arrived at the hospital department we were half-expecting to spring straight into action. But the morning was unspectacular at first- as the doctors put it, medical students tend to bring them "luck" - their workload drops whenever we arrive and there is often nothing much for us to see.
But it did not stay like that for long. Soon the cases started streaming in and there were lots of stuff to see and do - set plug, take blood, watch TNS, watch intubation, place ECG leads, take history, interprete ECGs and XRays. The cases were highly interesting too, but I shall heed a certain prof's advice and refrain from mentioning any specifics here.
I suppose it is safe to mention that we had experiences involving violent behavior that would likely stay etched in our collective memories.
Cherio!

BCLS

Today I attended the Basic Cardiac Life Support Course, held at the Shaw Foundation Alumni House for the first time. This was bad for the school because they had to pay extra to book the Alumni House, but good for us because for once we have a course that isn't held in some LT/ multi-purpose hall and the likes.

Venue aside, the course was enjoyable because:
1) My instructor was patient and knowledgeable, and she helped correct numerous mistakes in my CPR technique
2) It was more or less stress-free, because I know I will eventually pass.
3) It included a section on defibrillation and cardioversion, which I imagine, (should) be extremely useful in the future.

So far so good. Add today's BCLS to the lectures we had at CGH from Mon to Wed, and we have a little introduction to Emergency Medicine.

Hopefully, our modicum of knowledge can help us make a little more sense about what is going on when we start our attachments - which would be tomorrow. Isn't that reassuring?

But of course, we will still be lost in the ED. That is already confirmed. The lectures simply help to reduce the degree of lostness we feel, by making us think we are more knowlegeable.

I think I feel smarter already.

A Happy Day

It's been an eventful week. I've blogged almost every day, and somehow I managed to have an outing every day, thanks to the enthusiasm in our og for LAN. Not too long ago, we had battlefield 2. Nowadays it is L4D2. I'm glad we played, though maybe a little excessively. My eyes are sore after staring for hours at the screen, when I walk on the streets I imagine the pedestrians as the zombies.
A good time to take a break from LAN. Till the next holidays come by.
But that's not all that has been eventful this week. Today was the day of the release of my sister's A level results, which she had been worrying about for months. Fortunately, her nightmares didn't come true and she managed quite a respectable showing. Maybe she has a chance at Medicine! Haha.
Tomorrow I shall try to run 10km again. Hopefully I will be successful this time..

cg / medicine class outing

At noon today we watched Alice in Wonderland. The show had numerous pluses - it was colorful and wacky, it had extravagant costumes, fantastic cgi, good acting, and Johny Depp as the Mad Hatter. But personally, I found the movie a little too dark and the plot too predictable. Worst of all, the movie doesn't stay true to the books (show me a movie that does) - Alice gets emotionally attached to the mad hatter, refuses a marriage proposal, and becomes employed by her fiance's dad at the end of the show.

After the movie we headed for Marina Barrage. Possibly a good one-quarter of the m3 cohort turned up for "Er, anyone game for an outing?" We played touch rugby, flew kites, took in the scenery and snapped pictures among other activities.
My personal opinion is that there has never been such a grand non-lecture/exam class-based activity (save for Medicamp) - and this time there were free drinks and food to boot! Positively the greatest fun I've had with the "medicine class" so far. (:

NB: P organised the outing, S drove the cg there and back, and many people brought food/ games/ kites/ fun today!

Nothing much happened today. Except that I popped by for 3 hours of an Eastie's gathering where I finally managed to learn a bit of basic mahjong. Unfortunately my teacher only knows how to "ping hu" so that's the extent of my knowledge. Bah.
Unfortunately I can't make it for OG badminton tmr, hopefully I can rush down for lunch :)

L4D2

This afternoon the more LAN-loving side of the OG turned up to play L4D2 at Illuma, Bugis.

L4D2, for those who stay far away from LAN, is a gory, bloody game, full of zombies, and hardly family-friendly. And I am terrible at playing it. So why play it?
3 reasons:
1. It's fun
2. L4D2 is a team game, and the more we played, the better our teamwork became.
3. See #1.

After 3 hours of L4D2, we bade goodbye to 2 of our fellow friends before heading for dinner. We had a choice of either the super-budget QQ noodles or a super-filling buffet steamboat. I personally was in no mood for buffet, and fortunately a very unanimous decision was made: QQ noodles.
There was something to be said about the noodles, which resembled instant noodles in appearance, but tasted slightly better.

Finally, we topped off the evening with something refreshing at Ah Q Desserts.

There is something about time that causes it to speed up at inappropriate moments.
Like today, I think tmr will be over in a jiffy. :S