Pethidine Pleasure

I know when I've enjoyed a rotation when I'm sad to leave. The last seven weeks has been so amazing. In 4th yr I hated general medicine, but this year I've learnt more that I could have possibly imagined. I had an awesome team with a House Officer who worked me like a slave, and a registrar who was a walking encyclopedia! I also had a great no-nonsense consultant who had this amazing ability to focus on the useful information and ignore all of the crap that just confuses matters. We also had fantastic patients with such a wide range of interesting problems! I couldn't have asked for more.

I'm not sad about having done my long case though. I sounded like a bumbling fool throughout the my presentation to the examiners. It got off to a bad start - I realised I had forgotten to ask the patient her age! Then I had forgotten to write down all of her medications! As I kept talking, I could see the examiners change from looking bored to confused to dismayed to irritated. With each morphological change in their facial expressions, I got more and more nervous which made things even worse. Finally I got to the end and had a chance to shut up.

Then it was question time! Of course, I handled these with true professionalism.

Them: "How is a bone scan done?"

My brain: "I fill out a yellow referral form and ask for a bone scan, and it just happens"

What I said: "I dunno"

Later on...

Them: "What dose of morphine would you give?"

My brain: "As per IV protocol"

What I said: "I dunno"

That's just a brief glimpse of my stupidity. Oh well, it's all over now and there's nothing I can do to change the crazy things I said.... or didn't say.

Anyway, there's more exciting things to think about! I'm now exactly half way through TI year! Half way towards becoming a House Officer. Hence, you can call me House while I earn the Officer part over the next 6 months! (OK, sad joke I know) All of the big rotations are over now. There's just O&G, paeds and my elective to go! Going to out of town for O&G is a bit of a nuisance, but I'll make the most of it and try to enjoy having a rotation outside of Auckland.

Of course, the most exciting thing coming up is my elective!! I've finally managed to get my plane tickets sorted. My hands were shaking with excitement this morning when I signed the forms at the travel agents! I'll talk more about this in another post!