.

If there's a word that can describe me right now its lackadaisical. I'm a slow worker. I'm spending too much time on the stupid case study. Feel like burning the cofm dept.

xmas day at hope's place. Got a mayday CD (its 1 + 1 so actually 2 CDs) from huiting! Pleasant surprise..cos she tricked me.

I wanna shop.

posted by Alvin @ 11:14 PM |

Oh man..why do I seem to be busier than before. Yesh..when are the hols gonna start? WHen did I last blog? Think it's during the e med posting. Yes e med!! I like e med!! I like Dr CHew! He's literally my saviour, esp in ECG. You know, from close to zero knowledge in ECG, he has pushed it up to eh..at least 60%? Yeah juz by attending two long and tedious tutorials. And how to tell the territory of blockage in which coronary artery, even how to tell whether the proximal, middle or distal artery is blocked. Hehe sorry if all of you already know this..but I don't. Why? Cos I think I'm basically quite a passive learner and if I don't hear it during tutorials, I prolly won't go and read up on my own. Besides, he says the books don't explain it that clearly. And I did my first female catheterisation. So paiseh. The first time I saw the female anatomy up close and I couldn't find the correct hole..so to speak. And I was struggling with it for 3 min or so before the nurse (who was beside me all the time) corrected me. Yes alvin is so ignorant. hahaha.

Yup ambulance run was gd too. I saw 2 standby cases. One asthmatic attack - the ambulance actually came to my block, then I realised the guy was actually living 1 storey above me. Another is from an old folks' home. She was in septic shock and was in a bad state by the time we got there. The reason for delaying calling the ambulance? Cos the home couldn't contact the family members and they don't have the liberty to call the ambulance. Stupid.. It was a life and death situation. There was another case - hypertensive emergency sent to CGH. When I got there I wanted to tell the doc hey do you wanna go and have a look at him..his symptoms are quite typical of aortic dissection but before I could say anything he grabbed me and asked me to help out with chest compression for a collapsed case in another room. SO no choice. As I was compressing I noticed brown fluid oozing out from his mouth with each thump on the chest. ANyone knows what that is? Dunno what happened to him cos I left the hospital soon after. Something else.. I didn't know that the paramedics are all NSFs! There's one senior paramedic who's either a regular or a reservist, and the rest are all NSF medics. Hmm. The SCDF entrusts our lives to a bunch of NSFs. Not exactly very comforting to know.

The e med test. This I muz mention. All his students say he's very nice, and I've learnt that nice tutors are cruel examiners. He tricked me. Am I easily bullied? He asked me a question. I gave the correct answer. "Are you sure it's so high?" Upon hearing this I got quite shaky. So I changed my answer. "Are you sure it's so low?" Dammit. Blame myself for not being certain. So I juz gave a sheepish look. "It should be higher than that right?" I nodded. What else could I say! =P But seriously overall he's a nice person still. He's an incisive examiner. Will go to the greatest details and ask you to make sure you know what you're talking about. My ECGs were the best, the rest were bad. All 3 xrays were ortho. The mcq test was the worst..I left close to 40 blanks.

This is something I learnt in e med. If you see this, DO NOT shock the patient.

On TV, imagine this scene. Family members huddling around the patient's bed sobbing. He's in a coma. SUddenly they notice the cardiac monitor beep gaining speed. It gets faster and faster and eventually culminates in a long continuous beeeeeeep. And what you see on the monitor is asystole (flat line). Then the doctors rush in with defibrillators. "Stand clear" SHock. Hahaha

If you think that happens in real life it's totally wrong! The correct treatment is to give adrenaline and atropine IV. Hollywood's fault in perpetuating the error. On the other hand, if you see this, SHOCK.

This is not shown to television audiences becos there's no dramatic buildup to the climax. Often, the patient will juz complain of chest pain or not at all, and then collapse. The doctors will rush for the defibrillators and shock the patient. see..not worth showing the audience.

Went to mayday concert with kaimun! Couldn't find pple who like mayday.. in the end, saw a few familiar faces there, and of course tilam and pei lin. The sound system at expo was bad. Very jarring and voice control wasn't possible I guess. But the concert was gd. They didn't sing chun zhen though.

Is this shi tou? very blurr..not sure


The screens are big enough, but who looks at the screens anyway. Our seats are to the side.


5 of them on stage


We bought lightsticks


Best photo of all 5 of them so far!


The end.


Giving a bow


Bye!

Sijin had a knee op. Get well soon! SHe looks a lot better on day 2.

Visited my cofm patient. When I called his wife on wed, she said he was still in hospital, so my plan was juz to go to his house and take photos, mebbe interview his wife. Who would've guessed.. he was discharged on thurs and I managed to do a proper home visit. Poor couple. They are clearly concerned for each other. My patient has ESRF, his wife, depression.

Happy Bday Yiqian!


Blowing the candle


Posing for the camera


Ready to tuck in!

Had dinner at Thai Express with elvin after that.

posted by Alvin @ 1:57 PM |

Mayday rocks! Literally haha.. I din sit at all. I'm deaf. I'm tired. Gonna sleep.

posted by Alvin @ 2:11 AM |