Update from the country

Finally a day off. Lemme gather my bearings.

Anyways. Hidayah went home last Friday night. Layth & I drove her to the airport from Warragul and back again. Out at 6pm, back at midnight. Couldn't get into Alamaro (sheesh, you need to make reservations at that place nowadays!) so we had kebab from Melbourne Kebab Station. At the airport, the line for WEB check in was as long as the ordinary check-in queue. Talk about defeating the purpose!

The next day (Saturday) I worked a surgical cover coz the surgical intern was off sick or something and there was no one else to cover him/her. I didn't want to do it because then I'd have to get orientated to the wards (for just ONE day!) but the director of the hospital asked me in person and you can't say no to him, can you. Especially if he's going to be signing my appraisal form. Anyway, the shift was 8am to 8pm but the director said I can just work until 4pm (to sweeten the deal). I agreed.

On Saturday itself, the nursing coordinator (the person who runs the hospital on the day to day basis) asked me if I could stay until 6pm. Hmm okay. 2 hours later she said, can you then work from 6pm-8pm in the Emergency Department. Fine, then. She was a nice person so I agreed. So I ended up working 12 hours anyways. Sabar je la!

I did have a good time however. I was by myself so I had to run everything. I did the ward round by myself, saw the patients on the wards myself and write my notes myself. So sorta like the registrar+intern at the same time. Then I just called the consultant to tell him what was up and what I did and get his approval about what I'd decided to do. The consultants were all REALLY nice over the phone (surprising for surgeons).

Later in the day one of the patients who had blood in his urine got both of his catheters blocked. He had TWO catheters, one in his urethra, and the other puncturing his bladder in the tummy and both were blocked with blood clots. Spent the whole afternoon dealing with that problem. Long story short I am now very confident with male catheters since I successfully inserted a 20G 3-way urinary catheter...woo hoo. For benefit of non medicos, 20G is a huge catheter. It's like the diameter of a pinkie. Imagine that in your *insert name of organ here*.

I felt very accomplished that day. Helped patients, treated people, made nurses happy, didn't get told off by bosses. I had a good time.

Then after 6pm I had to go back to the hustle and bustle of Emergency again. I tell you, it's not my thing.