life, so far 2

Today I woke up at 5:30, made myself a cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal before proceeding to iron the white uniform I was supposed to wear for the day. A few minutes later I receive an SMS saying that due to the bad weather the hospital would be running on a “skeletal” staff and only the staff on 24-hours duty would be required to come. Well, so much for waking up early. I won’t be going on duty until Saturday. I hate being on duty on weekends. For my rotation this month I get weekends off so it’s really a bummer when my duty falls on a weekend.

Last month’s rotation was in Psychiatry. Imagine my surprise the first day I went to the National Center for Mental Health (aka Mental Hospital). I’m a fool to think that NCMH was just this one big building and that there couldn’t be so many patients at all. Well, NCMH is a big compound with an ER, Outpatient Service, and dozens more pavilions catering to specific patients/mental illnesses. The only good thing I had going for me before I went on rotation was that I believed that there was more to Psychiatry then depressed rich people paying lots of money for 50-minute hours reclining on those weird-looking chairs waiting to be told that they were making progress and given refills of Prozac or Zoloft.

Before starting on my Psychiatry rotation I had planned to brush up my knowledge with pop cultures take on the field. I had planned to watch Girl, Interrupted, read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and similar shit. I’m on my next rotation already and I haven’t even read or seen anything yet. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not making as much progress as I hope to make during my junior internship. I’m still way, way behind.

I start my 8 weeks of pediatric rotation next month. It’s the peak season. Cold weather and rains are probably a pediatrician’s best friends. I’m afraid I can’t say the same for mothers and their sick children. To be honest, I’m beginning to be a little scared. Kids are great, but unlike my sister who is doing a great job teaching grade school and motivating the utterly hopeless, and my brother who is everyone’s kuya, I have absolutely no talent dealing with kids. I’m just way too serious to kid with kids. I would not put it past me to treat a seven year old like an adult.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I have another 2 weeks and some to prepare myself. I just hope I start with inside rotation and not get thrown out for outside rotation in a public hospital to deal with screaming children before I know what I really need to know.

Well, that's my life, so far.