surgery nostalgia

After rotating in five different hospitals for Surgery I have to say that I am going to miss the action at the Emergency Room, all the bleeding and gaping wounds to be sutured, fractures to be reduced, and burns to debride and dress. (No, I'm not going to miss retracting body parts in the OR). This is me saying goodbye to all the operating rooms that look like tiny closets to ones in big hospitals that look like spaceships.

Tomorrow is my last duty. It better be good.

(And then it’s hello to the delivery room for OB)

commute

Sa kahabaan ng España

On my way to the hospital in Tondo for my surgical rotation I am barely bothered that I’m already late. Time in is at 7 am. It is almost 8 and I’m barely halfway there. I look up from the book I’m calmly reading and notice for the first time that the bus is packed, both men and women standing in the aisle, holding on to chairs and metal bars lest they be thrown off balance as the bus careens almost aimlessly despite the heavy traffic. I have always wondered how all these commuters handle their hour-long commute to and from work/school/wherever. I have always lived in a dormitory or apartment very near school or my place of work. The longest jeepney ride I’ve had to endure to go to school lasted 45 minutes only because at that time I was already running late and caught in rush hour traffic. On the good days, it only took 10 minutes to get to school. On the not so good days when I’m running late I would often choose to take the 20-minute walk to school if the weather permitted. It was always just a few minutes walk or a short jeepney ride to school/work. It is only when I’m on outside rotation in government hospitals that the daily plight of the commuter shock me into reality.

I cannot imagine wading through floods during the rainy season. I cannot imagine not having an end to the street’s madness. I at a least have something to look forward to. I am out of the hospital base for a month at most at any one time. There is always an end to the madness. There is always time to recuperate (far from the maddening crowd) before I am thrown off balance again.

But not these people. No these commuters whose hour-long commute is nothing but run-of-the mill.

I have much to learn in this life.

surgery

Surgery was never one of my strengths. Imagine the dread I felt on the first day of rotation in a government hospital near a slum area known for high crime rates (read: lots of stab wounds, mauling, gunshot wounds).

The first day fell on a holiday, so the hospital was working on a skeletal staff and only the staff on 24-hour duty were required to report. The number of patients I saw in the ER and the ward was overwhelming. I had barely warmed a chair with my backside during morning endorsements when I was called to assist in an emergency appendectomy.

Of course, there’s that peculiar practice in some hospitals of having junior interns like me pushing fluids and IV medications aside from doing IV catheter insertions, blood extractions and dressing of wounds in the ward. You barely finish with one surgical wing, when you hear yourself being paged to hurry on to the next wing. And when you think you’ve just about had it working in the ward, you get called down to the ER to help de-bulk the increasing number of patients coming in. So you proceed to take the history and P.E. of incoming patients, insert IV catheters to bleeding patients with collapsed veins barely there, insert nasogastric tubes and urinary catheters to drunks who proceed to pulling said tubes/catheters as soon as you turn your back. In the wee hours of the morning you end up suturing the wounds of said drunk patients on whom anesthesia do not work so they squirm and holler in pain with every stitch you make.

It is not enough to be on 24-hour duty, you have to endure the burden of ward work again the the next day – so that all in all you are awake for at least 36 hours, with not even a wink of sleep, literally. After my first duty I had the audacity to invite a friend over to my place for dinner. Poor friend had to endure my inability to make conversation as I head-bobbed my way through the meal. I would eat one spoonful and halfway through chewing the mouthful I’d doze off. At the end of the meal I had to be awakened and told to go to bed. Poor friend had to do the cleaning up after the meal. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was off to dreamland.

I can’t wait until this week is over.