2014 hellooooo!

have passed my mrcs (with flying colours, i got 89%, whooopppp!). and also gotten into ortho residency!

finished my mandatory 6 months in General Surgery as part of residency requirements - am so glad it put to paid all my GS dreams that i ever once harboured. really doubt i would have enjoyed it much.

back to A&E! loving the adrenaline rush that resus gives me. tubed a patient at first pass yesterday in a collapse. felt super awesome after that!

but also am very slow. thankfully people are very nice so it's tolerable. not so much pressure to keep up with the case loads as well, phew. the rest of the residents are really nice and friendly too so it's easy to find friends :) also B and patty are there so it's quite good :) 

i remember being lost on my first shift and B had to rescue me and tell me to go home since it was so late already. also patty taking over my cases and shooing me off a few shifts later. friends are really awesome to have!

so what did 2013 bring for me?

well, had a major burnout and seriously considered taking no-pay leave but was told in no uncertain terms that it was disapproved of by my consultant. :( found myself dragging myself to work everyday with no joy in life. i suppose it was made worse by the fact that i was a single resident in a busy team and no intern to help me. not to mention i don't drive so the commute is a nightmare.

went to philippines twice on disaster relief missions. first in october for the earthquake in bohol, 2nd for the super typhoon haiyan mission in ormoc. eye opening and now i'm not so scared of missions work anymore. made some great friends and learnt alot about hardiness and resilience in the process. filipinos are amazing. 

will always cherish the lessons i learnt from them. 

we had leaking ceilings, no hot water, no electricity, horrible food, even experienced aftershocks. but i'm glad i went. i don't know if i made a difference, but i really sincerely hope that i did.

travelled to new zealand after that, and i got to check bungy jumping and sky diving off my bucket list! :D no regrets there, it was really awesome! sky diving is so good, i need to go a few more times! 

alrighty. wondering what new adventures this year will bring me on. excited! here's hoping we all never let adventures pass us by <3 div="" nbsp="">

exams in 12 days. OFFICIALLY PANICKING.

you know the feeling you get when you really can't study any more and yet you feel like you don't know anything?
that's me right now.

made worse by the fact that all my boys got pushed to an earlier exam on 6 and 7 october in coventry and i'm in edinburgh. so i have no more study partners :(((

was super thankful to receive a call from W at the airport when he was boarding the plane to london, in his usual fashion of, "ZOMG stop feeling sorry for your pathetic self and go study or sleep. don't sit there and mope now that i'm not there to kick your arse. and eh send me Ranson's score. Glasgow also. And wish me luck for pwning the exam!"
oh LOL what would i do without the boys. very thankful for 8 years of friendship and counting. we have seen each other through 5 years of exams, numerous on-calls, relationships and deaths.

Always regretted not deciding on ortho earlier (instead of wasting time on ob/gyn!), but that would have meant taking exams without the boys (lost 2 years going back to army for conscription).
tradeoffs for everything :)

so went for yoga today. very good for me - breath of fresh air after being cooped up at home/office for a week! flexibility is the pits now :(

gonna take a nap and do questions with W later over whatsapp (technology, i love you!). he has gotten to london safe and is going for breakfast at harrods (i hate him). S, L and P have reached coventry safely and C is flying now. fingers crossed!

flying in a week. PANICKING!!!!!

omg i have abandoned this blog for a year! :( i am sorry!

it's just so much easier to type short things on twitter, no need to sit down and ruminate and pen out a proper blog entry (not that i actually sit down and ponder what goes into my blog entries, but still)

if you follow me on twitter, you will know that i didn't make it into residency. again. and yes, i was horrendously disappointed and upset and angry etc etc. but i've moved on and gotten over it. hopefully next year! (and i think next year is the last year i will try for ortho)

still loving ortho! had the best reg ever in Spine which made the 3/12 there quite fun actually. he's like my big brother. best part was he actually let me do a cancellous screws on call with him! :D and you know what, the check Xray was fab. so i rock okay :D (rather, he rocks hahaha)

i also passed mrcs part a! which means that come october, i will be flying to edinburgh to sit for part b! looking forward to returning to UK once more :D :D :D
sunday roasts, primark, marks and sparks, sains, and so much more :D
and hopefully i pass my exam ;)

if i should be following you on twitter etc drop me a line! you can always find me @ditzydoctor

gonna keep this blog alive somehow. can't give it up just yet! :)

un-matched

residency results came out and i didn't match. rather upset about it, all my friends matched happily (except the boys going into army, different story). i hadn't harboured much hope, esp since they kept saying the pool is very small, very few will match in. but how come all my friends matched and i didn't? really thankful for my non-med friends who are bringing me out for drinks and wallowing in misery toms. could really do without more of this rubbing in your face thing right now. am not as depressed as i thought i would be (since i was actually considering rejecting residency and applying for emed training instead), but it really kind of sucks to be told that i am too lousy to be matched. many people have told me i am quite good, so WHY?? WHY. sometimes we don't understand how things work. i don't. i don't understand all this, am not going to pretend i do. but as long as i have chocolate and family and God, things will be okay. just give me some time

today was a much better day :))
i did walkers today, ortho cases make me :))))
plus even managed to diagnose an anterior MI and get a "well done" out of the grumpy cardio registrar which made me really :D :D :D :D
somedays, i really love my job! today is just one of those days :)

oof

so. today was not the best of days. i flubbed 7 out of my 8 plugs that i had to set. i saw only 8 patients.

i could have pushed myself, stayed overtime and seen a 9th. but what would have been the point?

somedays are good days and some are bad days. today was a bad day. i felt like a noob intern struggling with plugs again for the first time, like my first ever call in the labour ward where i failed 8 plugs out of 10. that was one miserable night! :(

but like all things, it comes to pass. today was made much better by eating my hand delivered aussie tim tams (thank you so much chris! :) xx), drinking green tea, and watching Yes Minister :)

i will never get tired of humphrey's ridiculousness :))) and i love their language, it is really all sorts of awesome! must go re-read the books ;)

i could really use a break. and i just had a break! :\ uh ohhh. but super looking forward to gold coast, i must say :))))

dissections

dissecting aortas, that is!

wasn't personally involved in caring for the patient - but my friend was. turns out the intial complaint was of upper back pain, not resolving despite iv morphine. On his very good suspicion - CT aortogram was done, which showed...

A STANFORD A DISSECTION.

WHAT THE BLOODY HECK! how rare are these compared to msk strains and the like!!!! omg. @_@

so vascular came down to see patient - arrangements made for him to be transferred to a level 1 cardiothoracic surgery centre were in place, and ambulance was right outside waiting, when...

THE PATIENT COLLAPSED.

again, WHAT THE BLOODY HECK! he went into VF and was shocked. at some point, the vascular attending was there along with the vascular and CTS senior residents (having driven madly down from the level 1 centre). omg.

decision for emergency thoracotomy was made, and internal cardiac massage done. it was so abso-bloody-lutely thrilling to watch the heart being massaged and shocked with internal paddles, a feeling i cannot quite describe except that my heart was in my throat, hammering away, and felt like it was about to jump out at any minute.
there was SO MUCH BLOOD evacuated from the pericardial cavity. that must have been some dissection (and it was, when i saw the CT scan!).

it was all very well and thrilling, until they decided to call off the resus. the patient's daughter is from the same college as me, and i felt so super sad when she turned up in her logo shift and college badge :( :( :(
i mean, things always hit closer to home when you can relate somehow, eh?

am totally grateful that i managed to witness all that (hiding behind curtains, perched on a stool, hidden by the human wall of nurses). it was really quite amazing, not to put too fine a point on it. well worth my staying back over an hour to see what happened!

emed simultaneously repulses and thrills me. i detest drunks/regulars, but i absolutely LOVE the thrills of a resus! seriously considering emed, but i'm not quite sure if i can actually give up ob/gyn or the OT!