First week

Thank God it’s Friday!!!!! Had a long and tiring week. I had my first week of introduction to clinical school in Austin. Every morning, I woke up at 6.30am, before the sun rises, get ready as fast as I possibly could, catch the tram down to the city, then a train to Heidelberg, where my beautiful Austin Hospital is. It took me about 45 minutes to an hour to get there. All these happened in the cold freezing morning weather! My day starts at 8.30am all the way til about 4.30pm. When I reached IH at the end of the day, the sky turned dark… but as for today, it is my first day since I got back to Melbourne where I can sit in my room, facing the cloudy sky and typing this blog.

Clinical was pretty fun though, despite the fact I am going to Bendigo (which happens to be a pekan). Did some cool stuff this week:-

1. I learnt some basic physiology stuff like helping the patient to sit up from lying on his bed, helping patient to stand from sitting position and using different walking aids and their functions in assisting patient walking.

2. During my respiratory tutorial, the registrar thought us a couple of new stuff during physical exam. The patient which has a hyperinflated chest presented with shortness of breath. In addition to that, he has rheumatoid arthritis on his right hand and osteoarthritis on his left. Pretty interesting eh? Plus, the reg taught us how to check if the diaphragm is working through physical exam. Thought the session was awesome!

3. Yesterday I was tagging a nurse in a stroke ward. I assisted a doctor in a male catheterization on a patient with urinary retention because of his lower spinal problem and prostate enlargement. I think we were in the room for about 40 minutes but the catheter can’t seem to go into the bladder because of the obstruction by the prostate and the much clot in the urethra due to the trauma by the previous catheter. I think the doctor informs the urologist and I think the patient might undergo suprapubic catheterization.

Overall, it was a tiring but exciting weekend. Can’t wait til next week. Starting my gastroenterology (gut system) and general surgery block next week in Bendigo. I think I gotta take a lot of own initiative in order to learn. Just have to be more “semangat” in learning and interact with patients.