王盈方醫師瘋狂之旅 Dr Yvonne Wang's Blabberings

I've finished half of my 5th year in med now~~ had a very busy year so far
I'm super stressed out!! This year is the specialties year where we do 4
terms, 9 weeks each term, with exams on the 9th week: a term in Obstetrics &
Gynaecology, one in Paediatrics, one in GP/Geriatrics/Subspecialties, and
one in Psychiatry..... I've done my O&G term, and only just finished
Paediatrics.... still feeling awful about my paeds practical exam> clinical years (for us it's from the 4th to the 6th year) we hardly have any
holidays. In 5th year, we only have 1 week of holidays between each term...
so we don't have much of a holiday... it was worse in 4th year! we had 1
week of holidays in April and one week in August and that was it... our 4th
year ended in the beginning of december and started again in the beginning
of January (yes, only 1 month of summer holidays)

Speaking of my terms this year.... I found both O&G & Paeds interesting
terms... however, my conclusion from these terms are that I don't wanna be a
O&G specialist or a paediatrician!

The theory you learn in O&G is really interesting, and you learn quite a few
practical aspects of pregnancy and childbearing... but some of the midwives
are really mean to med students and alway gives the midwife students the
women who are most likely to give birth first (yes, it's their revenge coz
doctors used to be pretty mean to midwives in the past... but don't these
midwives realise they're creating a vicious cycle there?!).. this is not
good for us because as a part of our course requirement, we are required to
deliver a certain number of babies ourselves... and the midwives always seem
pretty cranky.... I think that's becoz of all that hormone the pregnant
women are releasing (my period pains were worse during my O&G term!!!)....
we usually had to wait for many many hours for the woman to give birth, but
my luck has been rather strange... I always get women who came in & the
babies just burst out immediately (like in 15 minutes)! and that makes it
really bad coz the midwives couldn't assess me properly and alway gave me
5/10> he kept getting women who ended up getting C-section in the end! (tats
really bad coz u don't get to deliver these women's babies!).... so I don't
like the labour ward experience.......

As for paeds, the theory is very interesting and kids are cute... but kids
can get any sort of illness so you have to study quite a lot for the
term...I did half of the term at Campbelltown Hospital (this is at the
periphery of Sydney)... the reasons why some people present to ED can sound
pretty funny... like this girl came in because "the coach fell on her"!! coz
they were having PE class or some sport, and coach was a huge man, and he
accidentally fell, and squashed this girl!... other times, it can sound
pretty shocking, eg. "4 year old boy coming in because he got stabbed with a
knife by his YOUNGER sister".. the sis stabbed the bro in the forearm and
the subcutaneous fat was showing, but it was not in any way
life-threatening.. .

however, some kids can be real nightmares! in the paeds practical exam, we
were divided up into 4 group, and one group had this 3 or 4 year old kid
with develpmental daly for developmental assessment.. this kid punched one
med student, scratched another, and strangled another by grabbing the
stethocope!! . And a few days ago, when me & my classmates saw this 2y.o.
kid, the kid suddenly scratched my friend on the face as she was taking the
history! one of the cases i did for paeds was on this 4y.o. boy w/ nephrotic
syndrome... when i was looking at the notes, it said "he was violent... he
slaps, spits, hits and hammers... and he spat out cyclophosphamide (his
medication, which is a chemo type of medication so they had to treat it as a
toxic chemical spill)

the paeds practical exam I just had was traumatic.... we had 1 history and 1
examination station... they gave us the feedback soon after we finished our
exam, and I was told that I passed but didn't score well coz the examiners
think I looked really anxious.
i think i looked extremely anxious~ and my technique wasn't too good coz it
was a resp exam on 2 month old baby! very hard to do!~ and u know wat they
do w/ paeds practical exam? the exams were spread out over 2 days... some
ppl did it on thurs, some did on friday....... ppl tat failed on thurs have
to come back to resit on friday, ppl tat fail on friday have to resit on the
same day.. and they're not very discreet about ppl who failed...... so we
all know who failed on thursday, and on Friday when they gave us the
feedback, everyone could hear it

Anyway, enough w/ the trauma! I don't regret doing med at all! You learn
lots of interesting and practical knowledge, and get exposed to lots of
things which you could never be exposed to if you didn't study med. It also
helps you to see things in a wider perspective and speed up your growth in a
way. This is a very special privaledge... The downside is that it is
stressful and sometimes one can become a rather dull person....

I will be going to Port Macquarie for 6 weeks in my GP term! It will take me
4 hours to drive there... it's quite a famous tourist area w/ great weather,
so I'm looking forward to it. I'm gonna be staying there from 27th June to
5th August!