Tuesday 30 September 2008

Placement in Blackburn

After a day of induction, finally today i have started my official clinical placement for my first module: HLB- Heart, Lung, Blood. My first posting in Royal Blackburn Hospital is in Critical Care Unit. I had a very interesting day despite my clinical partner was absent. I did a respi and cvs examination on my own. And both were female patients!!! And clerking a patient who was uncounscious on admission. I was blank when writting the report and i didnt know what to write for chief complaint and associated systoms. Coz the patient wasnt complaint of any symptoms at all!!!
And i performed an ultrasound on the neck. I DID IT!!! all on my own with the verbal guidance from the registrar as he needs to see the vessels in the neck in order to put in the central line. Changing the direction of the probe to look at different anlge for carotid arteries and internal jugular vein.
A lot of things were very different from what we learn in medical school. In a real clinical settings, problems arised when you come into practice.
For example,
1) The pateint has both arterial lines at the radial pulse, then I had to find a space near the radial artery to palpate for the pulse....
2) The patient has kyphoscoliosis, the first time i did percussion and auscultation on the back but not in a straight line downwards. I had to follow the shape of the spine to percuss and auscultate and compare.
3) A female pateint who had aortic stenosis and i actually picked up ejection systolic murmur on my own. but then the problem is she has breasts on her chest... and then i could palpate the apex beat. but i had totally no idea how to locate it when i moved along the intercostal space coz i couldnt feel for the rib!!!
After a whole day of hard work, i kind of more appreciate that i am in Blackburn. Although i was on my own, but it's a brand new world that welcome me a lot. So i just relax and enjoy my postings for the next 13weeks...
p/s: never expect myself to adapt so quickly, hopefully this happiness would continue....
Good luck, Jooney!!!

Friday 26 September 2008

It doesnt rain today.... But i cried yesterday

There's a phrase in chinese said that the day would be sunny after a rain. But then it doesnt rain today and it's sunny.
Life still goes on even my appeal wasnt successful. Balckburn here i come~~~ i would normally put !!! at the end of the sentence but i really dun feel like putting it on. i dun feel excited, i'm just feeling calm. after a few days of waiting, i kind of accepting the fact that i'm going there reagrdless what the reason i gave to the dean. now my main concern is to stay there or staying back in Preston? to travel everyday or to get accomodation there? at least it's comfirmed i have to leave and i could stop myself from dreaming...

i want to end the law of bad attraction and create the law of good attraction...
instead of saying why i havent receive my phone yet???
i should say: my new phone is coming soon!!!
instead of saying why i have to go Blackburn???
i should say: Blackburn, i'm going to conquer you!!!
instead of saying why my com cant go on line???
i should say: I would sort this out very soon!!!
Would everything good come to me soon? I want good things to happen... I want things to go as i wish but... sad to say, in the real world not all things would go as u wish...
so just accept.... accept the fact that those bad things are over, and i'm waiting for my new n happy life in a new place!!!

Tears flew out yesterday... and it's accumulating today... i wonder when would it burst. i'm trying hard to hold it, to hide it from ppl....
But i know it's going to burst, it's just a matter of time...

the post today is very random... but i'have been very moody since last week, pretending that i'm happy. i'm trying to be tough and mature but it's really hard.
can i be more childish and do things without thinking the consequences???
ppl ard me would nvr bother. they just care abt what's the plan this weekend. n i would just have to listen and hiding my tears...
it's not a shame to cry but it's a shame i have no freinds to open up my feelings with...
it's just to hard to get true friends here...

i m going to end this post at a random point. pls dun ask me what happen as too many things happened and i duno where to start. but if u r really my true friend, just pray for me n i'll be fine.

Monday 22 September 2008

Focus, Think, Stand up & Speak out

This is my new motto of being a medical students in Prseton.
fisrt of all, must FOCUS in all lectures and PBLs. coz the ppl here hv very strong accent, if u r dreaming for 1 sec, u might not be able to follow the whole story and seem very lost in the lecture.
next, must THINK!! cannot think hard, must think smartly and think wisely. the manchester students are very good in stimulating their brain to think, unlike us the malaysian students that are so used to spoon-feeding based education. that's why we r always slow in giving answers coz we dun use our brain to think frequently.
finally, i must learn to STAND UP & SPEAK OUT... chances are there, but i cannot just be like in malaysia sitting at my own corner to study. to gain more knowledge, to improve and advance in this country, they key is to ask questions. never afraid of asking supid questions, jsut voice out our opinion.
BUT.... somehow this is quite difficult to achieve as we dun normally think... so we dun normally think of any questions.... if u dun have questions, u remain queit...
cycles go on... and on... and on... and i m still in the stage of focusing... a little bit of thinking.... and a very long way towards standing up and speaking loud....
i have to be determined, it's all in my mind....
Focus, Think, Stand up & Speak out!!!

Friday 12 September 2008

time flies...

finally our first week of ICL has come to an end...
what have i gain so far? only one word, MALU~~~~
I FEEL SO EMBARASSING for myself as we go along the time table. eg: communication skills lab, basic life support, airway training, glucosemeter training, cannulation, iv infusion, urinalysis....
basically i have learnt a lot of this thing from IMU formally or informally but i still cant master tthe skilss for 100%....
i just feel that i have put in so much effort to go till this far but i did not advance for the past few months...
"a lot to catch up" is actually an excuse
"a lot to recall" is the truth...
laziness would always make u not moving....
so i should be more dedicated from this second...
ren zhen!!! jia you!!!

Wednesday 10 September 2008

Orientation/ Induction Week

I came to manchester/preston with an empty cup, hoping to fill in with information and resources... I wouldnt say i enjoyed a lot so far coz their orientation was boring... super boring....
Maybe i should start on with the comment thing first...
First of all.... weather... it wasnt very cold yet as now is till consider as summer although autumn is coming up... But the worst thing is--> it rains very day.... My shoes and pants get wet... i even got splash when a bus pass-by because i was walking to close to the road...
Next next...Classes/ Meetings/Breifings...
of course, i believe all students, regardless what uni you in, u would hv to meet the dean frist.. we, the direct entry student was asked to go for a briefing on the day before we met the dean as they would brief us on the medical schools and departments, the medical school student reps in MANCHESTER... but it wasnt really applicable for me as i m not going to stay in manchester as my base is in PRESTON which is another city further away from manchester. if u take train, it will take u 45min for a trip... but i am happy to find out that preston is one of the stop for the train to glascow and edinburgh... as i hv friends there....
and the second day for us, the direct entry students, aftyer meeting the dean and listening to their speech, we went to the stduent service centre for registration. i was lucky that i was sponsored by the government and everything went so smoothly without any trouble at all, which means i do not need to come to manchester another day to sort it out... i got my swipe card on the day itself and i can now proud to introduce myself as STUDENT OF UNI OF MANCHESTER!!!
and here the third day came, we were giving briefing on Royal Preston Hospital which is the base of our hospital... and also some of the staffs and most imporatantly, they briefed us on the ICL (Intro to Clinical Learning) which is an induction course the last for three weeks, before we go into clinical settings...
then here came the first weekend for my second visit to UK... i planned to visit my uncle and to collect my stuff as i left a lot of stuff at his palce in my first visit. and because of that i missed a super huge dinner with the seniors on sat night. there were 80seniors from Y4, Y5, FP1 nad FP2 and also my batch mates, the Y3 students... and that was the saddest experience i had ever had in travelling in UK.... the journey from manch to cardiff is only 3hr. i departed at 2.30pm but eventually i reached my uncle's house at 8.30pm..... what a terrible trip!!! the train was moving slowly... and it terminated at hereford and i was told that the railway was flooded and the train couldnt move over... so i was "invited" to take the bus to newport and myuncle picked me up from newport train station.....
and this week is my second week.... also boring week as it's an oreintation week for the preston students...
looking forward to see what's going to happen this week. ha!!