Albury Sunrise

This is the only good thing about early Wagga mornings

Girls Dinner

Courtney, Jacquie and I had dinner a week ago which was fun. The girls went to school together and now we are in the same bible study. We met up with an old friend of theirs from school, she's been overseas with the army, training and stuff. Lots of fun stories there. Anyway, thought it was nice to mention the people I know outside the hospital!!

Oscar

Spending the long weekend in the Warragul area - near Melbourne. Run by Youth Vision Victoria, heaps of churches all over the place get together for a weekend of sport and fun. We are camping (cold i know) and taking 50 people. My sports will be Netball, fristbee (need some tips), touch footy, and aerobics! Thats right, we started choreographing a groovy 80s routine, complete with pushups, star jumps, and leg warmers. Will get heaps of photos from that weekend for you. Cant wait.

Trust me I'm a med student

Im practising really hard but some skills just dont come easy to us.
1)First was plastering which went quite well, Ive never had my arm and my leg in plaster before. The 6 of us made quite a mess, bandages and white goop all through the room. But the fun part was cutting them off with the scary spinning blade thing.


So this is michael, I forgot to add that he decided to wear a patient gown with his undies.

2)next adventure was giving injections, we practised for hours on the soft spongy pretend skin. Rochelle and I paired up to give each other a shot of saline. Fun fun. we did pretty good. Then this week we went to the hospital to get the flu vax shots. Michael gave me one.. and lets just say I wasnt impressed. Ouch!

3) my next goal is trying to take blood. The nurses in emergency let me do anything and push me to try it all out. (dont tell the patients its your first time). So anyway, I took blood off a nurse with the help of Karl (nurse in charge, I met through baptists church). So yeah, I got blood, but it wasnt a real success. Im trying again tomorrow... wish me luck!

Wow. what an adventurous couple of weeks. I should remember to post more often but oh well.
I had a radiology exam and got the results back on wednesday. Top of the class. Well theres only 6 of us but I stil did pretty good. None of us passed and our answers were very amusing, not ready to be doctors yet. I had 'heart failure' as a diagnosis for several Xrays EXCEPT for the one that actually was heart failure. I called the metacarpals - metatarsals (non med people - this means the ankle instead of the wrist) oops. I found 2 small white dots in an Xray of a pelvis, which was exciting because they ended up to be gun shot pellets from eating a duck (which had been shot) and apparantly this is common, the pellets just sit in your appendix for ages. It wasnt an important part of the Xray. If I end up being a radiologist I will read over these and laugh. Mel, have you got any more stories to swap me?? Thanks for your advice on osteoporosis... if in doubt .. that will be my diagnosis for everything.

We all met some lovely old people (over 85yo for anyone getting offended) at the geriatrics and palliative care wards. Pat had severe dementia but was lovely, wandering round the halls and chatting to everyone like she ran the place, rearranging vases and things. Another lady was out spoken! asking if michael was my boyfriend because we showed up to the hospital at the same time, and then when she met John from Taiwan pointed 'Your from China!'. Very clever, and very inappropriate!

Urology Extravaganza!

Yeah I read that on my timetable last week and was just as shocked as you. or maybe more because I realised what gross things we would be covering. Catheterisation, Kidney problem, bladder, prostate and everything on the way out. We were a bunch of immature teenagers. But anyway, we keep getting advice that urology is a good profession, lots of patients, not much after hours, rarely on call, plus its the only specialty that you get to be a physician and a surgeon at once. Well thats what they tell us. Thanks to Ben the urology reg for letting me in on the operations.

Im just back from my first pump class.
letting you know that it was good. but teh rest of the week ill be in pain probably. Sarah, Danielle and I went all the way to Lavington for the class. Its really not too far, but we dont like to admit that we live in Glenroy not Albury. so dont tell anyone. The other class I did was a step class in Wodonga with Rochelle. My dancing has paid off, thank goodness I dont look like a fool when trying to pick up the new routines. Getting your feet all caught up is not fun.
ok will update you on how many muscles in my body are aching by morning. Im guessing I wont be able to brush my teeth from the arm pain!!!

Update for the week.
I know I dont want to do palliative care, obstetrics, paediatrics, pathology, rehab or dermatology. Still considering emergency, cardiology, neurology, surgery?
Dont want to do orthopedics - joint and bone stuff. every second patient (literally) had broken knuckles... yes theyd hit someone... or something. I know there are a lot of army guys around but this is just violent!

I have some new mad skills. Ive given 2 injections! one tetanus shot and one saline injection. thanks to rochelle and a scared patient for letting me do it!
Assignments are due tomorrow. just wanted to write in and tell you that way out west they are putting us to work!

In other news... I lead a young adults bible study on monday night. It was fun.

The Gang

My fav. There was a series of pictures... I think the other ones were 'Mum' and 'Poo'. Whos idea was that.

I finally got to scub in to a surgery at Albury Base. The clinical school spent a while teaching us how to do the scrubbing (hands above elbows, for 15 minutes), gowning (this is the mistake i made) and gloving (2 pairs of gloves, size 7 and 6.5 for me). So after at least 20 minutes prep I am ready, complete with shower cap, mask and shoe covers. Theres probably a dozen people in the operating room but 4 of us are in the sterile green section. The nurse, the surgeon, his intern and me. Of all the surgeons and interns there is only one girl out here in the country. Penny.
The surgery was a hemicolectomy, where they remove quite a bit of the large bowel. This guy had some polyps which are growth that can look like cancer. I got to watch it all and hold the retractors (pulls the skin open so you can see inside) and when the surgeon left I helped cut the stitches as Penny was working on them, and use the cloth to wipe up heaps of blood. The guy ended up with a stoma (for colostomy bag, you can look that bit up), but will hopefully get 'joined back up' next time they operate.
I was surprised at how much blood there was... it really smelt bad. and how relaxed the surgeons were... questioning me on my anatomy and explaining stuff as we went along. Thankgoodness I wasnt getting in the road.
We'll all try and get photos next time in our gorgeous blue scrubs. Greys anatomy style.
I'll keep you posted...

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