Housemanship: Week 4

It’s been a month already. I’m so amazed at how time flies.

This week had more lows than highs for me.
4 patients died.Now being in pediatrics unit, you can understand how extremely sad and frustrating this was for me. To see 4 children die. Worst part is they all were less than a year old. The youngest was a day old, the oldest was 8 months old.
The death that got to me particularly was that of a new born 28 week old preterm child. It happened while I was on call and it truly broke my heart, most especially because I participated actively in the resuscitation of the child.
My biggest regret however, is the manner in which I informed the child’s mother that we had begun the resuscitation process.
All the do’s and dont’s of breaking bad news, I threw them in the gutter and it nearly caused her to have a hypertensive emergency. Well, the news of her child’s death was eventually relayed in a more gentle and professional manner, so thank goodness.
I guess, everyday, I’m learning that death is actually just part of life.
And yeah, I need to be better with breaking bad news.
I made some mistakes.In managing some of my patients, I made some mistakes that could have been detrimental if things didn’t work out as well as they did. I was scared and angry with myself for making such silly mistakes. But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt during this internship program, it’s that making mistakes is very normal and you need to own up to it when you do make a mistake.
If you’re unsure of something, ask and clarify. Some mistakes are unforgivable and they can cost the life of someone. When in doubt, call a senior colleague, worst case scenario they would insult you for not knowing stuff, but at least you wouldn’t make mistakes.
I barely slept.My call this week was extremely busy, I barely got 2 hours of sleep. The reality of being a doctor.
A severe allergic reaction.I have hives. Literally everywhere on my body, it’s extremely uncomfortable, it’s itchy, red and super frustrating. I’m not sure what it is that caused this reaction. (I have a suspicion though) Hopefully I’d get better soon

On the bright side

I needed to escape from the now normal routine of work to house and go to a different environment.

I went for a photography exhibition. It wasn’t as big as I expected it to be, which was a bit disappointing, but I enjoyed looking at the pictures and I definitely learnt from them.

Most of the pictures had this raw, unfiltered vibe. There was little to no retouching and the pictures captured humans with all their flaws and imperfections and it was truly beautiful.

I was actually going to enter my pictures for a review, but I chickened out and after seeing the pictures that were exhibited, I realised that I should’ve just entered them. Oh well, maybe next year.

I finally had ice cream

Finally after days of craving ice cream. I had cheesecake flavoured ice cream from this French restaurant. (I’ve forgotten the name of the place.) And it was extremely nice.

I moved out.

Well, not exactly, but kinda sorta. I’m staying over at a family friend’s house temporarily and it’s only been a couple of hours, but I’m already excited about it. It’s closer to work and there is an extremely cute dog.