1) During the mid-year break we got our intern job offers for next year, and I got offered a job at Austin Hospital, which was my first preference...woot! Think I just scrapped in since a lot of my friends didn't get in, and of the people who I know who did get in, they are all much smarter than I. So guess I'll be the dumbest intern at Austin...how wonderful.
2) Started this semester at the Northern Hospital, on the northern outskirts of Melbourne. I was in a surgical unit under the hilarious Mr Hong, who is known by us med students not only as an excellent if eccentric teacher, but also as the father of two twins who are both studying medicine in my year, and who are both hardcore smart. Apparently one twin got 1st in the state for his VCE, and the other got 6th in the state. Sounds like a very intense household.
3) I had my wisdom teeth taken out during the second week of my surgical rotation, thinking that it would be a simple day procedure, and I'd need one day, maybe two days tops for recovery, then I'd be back at uni. But things didn't turn out that way. I had it done under general anaesthetic under recommendation from my surgeon, and when I woke up from the GA I was drowsy as hell and coughing terribly. Only later when I was more lucid was I told tat I had aspirated some blood since the incompetent anaethetist pulled out my endotracheal tube too soon. Since it was only a day surgery centre, I had to be transferred to a tertiary hospital for assessment, then to a private hospital for convalescence. This entailed two ambulance trips, which worried me since in Victoria you have to pay around $800 per ambulance trip if you haven't bought ambulance insurance, and I had not bought it! The 2nd of the ambulance trips would have been especially outrageous, since the trip was literally 100m down the road and took barely 2 minutes. But luckily I still haven't gotten any bill yet for the ambulance trips, and I think it was because they knew I was a medical student and didn't charge me (this is somewhat common practice, for example my two previous surgeries also didn't cost me anything). So anyway, I stayed two nights in a private hospital and it was pretty sweet: private room, excellent hospital food (seriously!), nice nurses (except for the gay male nurse who I swear was watching me sleep...), and nothing to do but lounge around and watch tv or read newspapers. But I was fairly dependent on supplemental oxygen for those two days, as I would get light-headed from oxygen desaturation whenever I tried going without the oxygen, or if I was exerting myself in any minor way (mundane things like having a shower or going for a walk down the hall). Guess I have a bit of understanding now how it feels for a patient to be sick and in hospital, and how terrible it is for your body to be weak and unwell. At least in my case I knew that I would get better quickly, so my weakness didn't get me down. I don't think other patients (especially the old ones) necessarily have that hope.
4) My housemate and I had been thinking about moving out of the city for a little while, and two days after I got out of the hospital I decided to put up some ads around Melb Uni, to force myself out of the house (since I wasn't well enough to return to Northern Hospital to resume my studies). The ads were basically to find someone to take over our lease, since we still had about 4-5 months to go before it ended. The very next day after I put up the ads, I get a call from some two girls who wanted our apartment and wanted it in one weeks time! Not being prepared for such a quick response (and I think not really being mentally prepared for the eventuality of actually having to move), we quickly had to find a suitable place in the area we wanted, apply for the place, pack and move all our stuff, all in one week! Luckily the girls managed to delay when they needed our place by one week, and we managed to do everything in time. But it was such a crazy two weeks, especially after just having been sick. I think we located about 30-40 suitable apartment ads, inspected about 10 of them, applied for about 6 of them, got rejected by 2 (but they were so damn nice that they would've had lots of applications), and finally got offered 2 places. The place we eventually moved into was offered to us a day after a less suitable place was offered to us and we had accepted, so I had to ring the agent for the less suitable place and tell her that we were renegading on our original agreement to take the place. Since we hadn't signed the contract yet there was nothing she could do, but she sounded so disappointed (since she did a lot of paperwork to get the contract ready for us to sign), so I felt pretty scum...hahah oh well, the important thing was that I got the place I wanted :)
5) After finishing the 5 week surgical rotation, I'm currently back at the Austin Hospital doing a 5 week medical rotation. The hospital had a new ward tower built last year, so the wards are very clean and beautiful, and the student common room is huge and fantastic. Lots of comfy couches, a pool table, a table tennis table, and facilities for making lunch. Saw the junior doctor's rooms and they are even better, with a massive plasma tv and dvd player, so can't wait to use that next year! Going to Grand Round is usually the highlight of my week at the hospital, which is basically a presentation done by a different specialty unit each week, then the best bit, a fantastic free lunch paid for by drug companies! And with the Intern education session having free lunch (which we students go to), and talks by either medical insurance companies or accounting firms nearly every week (with free lunch of course), I barely have to bring my own lunch twice a week! But I can see why some older doctors are so fat...hahah...all these free lunches aren't too healthy.
6) Med Ball! Shamefully this is the first time I've been in the 6 years I've been doing med, tho I have been to two Pharmacy and two college balls in past years. The theme was "Glitz and Glamour - Spend a Night in Monaco", and they gave us fake money to use on casino tables they had set up (playing poker, blackjack and roulette), so that was pretty unique. The food was nothing special and the bar tab at the afterparty was non-existent, so the value-for-money was terrible, but the night was still very enjoyable and memorable. Here are some photos:
7) A scary thing happened last week. I was on ward round on Friday afternoon (the only reason I was still in the hospital at the time was to go to a talk by a medical insurance company, with you guessed it, free food and drinks), and I got a page from the clinical school. I called them, and they said that Melb Uni had placed a ban on all student taking blood and put in IV cannulae, because a 4th year student had gotten a needlestick injury while taking blood, and the patient was HIV positive! Apparently the student was inexperienced and was being supervised by a doctor, but the doctor should not have asked the student to do it in the first place. Surely the doctor knew that patient was HIV positive...maybe he/she forgot or didn't think about it ><" The worst bit is the student won't know for certain if they have contracted HIV for another 3 months. 8) To end on a happier note, my cousin Stella has recently gotten married! Congrats to Stella and Michele! My sister got to goto New York for the wedding, so lucky!
