It's SOOOO much better now! Hanging with the MO and Associate Consultants is more relaxing and really get to do more stuff rather than being scared shitless.

Doing lots of venepuncture and "plug" setting.. heheh but still getting irritated when I hear "Tri - arge" .. it's pronounced "tree-arge" silly.. and OMG heard a airway "Gerdel" being called a "Girdle" today ack!

Singaporeans..  lol

Spoke to the other consultant.. and she's more understanding.  Heard from another MO that Satan is always like that and many have fall by the way side.

Hopefully now that it's on the table, things may get better. For now I'll just keep my distance

Week in HELL

This week has been very trying and I wonder if i really want to come back to Singapore to work. I know this may have been one experience, but from all the stories I hear, it's very common!

For the last week, voices were raised at me almost everyday, and it wasn't 'cos I couldn't hear 'em. Expectations were such that I needed to know how they work and terminology they use. Perhaps it's cos that particular someone thought I was a local student since I'm Singaporean, or that's just how they speak. Personally I find it totally unprofessional and down right rude. I spoke to Mum & Dad about it and they say speak up and tell someone else, but it's kinda hard then the person who's doing it IS the person I would have to tell. And I don't like confrontations, especially when the person already makes me feel small and insignificant. Ok fine, they are good physicians and care for patients, but do they care for colleagues? for those under their supervision? Perhaps it's for good intention, but the method of carrying out those intentions SUCK! 

eg. "You're lucky you're a medical student, otherwise you'd have a pen thrown at you" I mean come on, just 'cos I didn't know how ALL the DDx for Hypotension and Bradycardia .. grrr.. maybe I'm an idiot but seriously!

"You mean you've NEVER seen someone faking symptoms???" Er.. I already told you I've not seen anyone faking symptoms... come on! Teach me, don't assume that i know it when I told you I don't.. even that doesn't make sense.

"Tell me which medical school you're from .... I'll never send my kids there" -- seriously your choice lah.. i pity your kids man.. having u as a parent.

Maybe it's cos more was expected of me since I'm a "Final year medical student" but felt so demoralised and run down. Thankfully the nurses are nice and having Ee Laily there was a comfort.

Hopefully I become stronger from all of this and not break ... so close to breaking though.. *sob*

A&E in Singapore

Was looking forward to being home in Singapore and also getting an elective done while there.

The night before the flight, I received a called saying that the flight had been cancelled due to severe snowfall in London Heathrow airport, so the flight that was meant to fly into Sydney n then off to Singapore never made it. So was given the option of taking an earlier flight at 11am instead of 3pm or a flight 2 days later. Guess which one I took?!

So was put on a Qantas flight to Singapore which got in at 6pm SGP time. I really won't want to fly Qantas if possible.. service was quite bad and well.. the food wasn't all that great either. I miss SQ flights.

So got into Singapore had almost a week rest until I had to go report to Pushpa @ NUS medical school. She was the one who didn't respond to my calls, emails or even Mum's call to NUS and really took her time with my elective application. Was very frustrating dealing with her, but then again.. med school admin - same everywhere around the world! Was told needed to get a white coat since all the med students here wore them. Didn't bring mine back so figured i'd hold off spending $48 on one unless i really needed it.

After NUS, had to report to Changi General Hospital (CGH) HR dept before the A&E. Got all the necessary docs and offical name tag then headed to meet my supervisor - Dr Tan WP. 

Found out that i'd have 2 supervisors - Dr Tan and Dr Lee SW cos both are part-timers and this way i'd get max exposure for my 4 weeks. Luckily cos I didn't have a white coat, I was given the privilege of using scrubs which meant that I didn't need to bring all my "nice" clothes and could have worn sneakers!! ARGH! Oh well.  So thus started my 4 weeks in A&E ...

Electives galore

Did my first elective in neurosurgery at RNSH. I wasn't too sure what to expect since it was entirely new as I didn't do neuro or neurosurg as an ICA, and honestly my neuro really sux. So got there at 7:30am for neuroICU ward rounds, only to find that the Regs didn't get there till around 7:45 or 8am sometimes. So just waited till they arrived. Then ward rounds up on ward 7B - neurosurg ward. Was interesting as during the WR, u see ALL the patients regardless of who the consultant was. Alittle time consuming but cool cos different consultants specialised in different areas. There were ample opportunities to do venepuncture, blood cultures, cannulation and the occasional long case if I wanted to.

Then depending on the day, it was off to surgery. Cool stuff... amazing what they can do with the brain and all but LONG!!! When I wasn't scrubbed, I divided my time between watching the surgery and asking the anaesthetists questions.

Mid-way thru the elective, there was a change in term and new interns came into the picture. It's cool to meet those who are 1 year senior to myself and come to the realisation that in a year, i'll be in their shoes! 

Also had an opportunity to observe surgery at Dalcross hospital which is a private hospital in Killara which is abt 15min train ride away. Nice quaint hospital with a specialisation in neuro/spinal/vascular surgery. And WOW the rooms look amazing - more like hotel than hospital. Interestingly, they also looked after their staff well as lunch was provided and they had the coolest expresso machine I've seen to date. Things to look forward to!

All in all it was an interesting 4 weeks.