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Saturday, August 20, 2011

1st week in HPJ

I guess I am just a lucky girl!! I get to do venepuncture on the very first week of my first posting. I reach at HPJ quite early in the morning for ward work. It's not compulsory but by experience, usually there are a lot of procedures to be done in the morning. Although my class will only start at 10am, I was at HPJ before 8am.


So I saw Dr. Lee, who either a MO or HO is pushing the trolley around so I asked if I can follow her and see how she do the procedure. She just agree easily. So I watched her doing venepuncture, blood gases arterial puncture and so on. After a few patient, she asked if I want to try. I told her that I have not learn any of this before. She says it's ok and she just let me try.


The first patient that I took was a suspected TB patient. He was sitting in isolated room and after we wear glove and mask, we went in. He is a chinese old man and he is very kind. We let him know we are going to take his blood and he say: sure no problem! So I tied the tourniquet, locate and feel for the vein and then I just insert the needle and draw out the blood. This uncle vein is easily to be seen as all his vein around his arm is so obvious.


picture taken: http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/274694/530wm/M5320470-Gloved_hands_placing_a_syringe_in_a_vein-SPL.jpg


The second patient is an Indian, his vein is not easily to be seen. So after I tied the tourniquet I feel for the vein and confirm the place. This time, we use another method which is using vacuum tubes. Dr. Lee says vacuum tube usually is harder as we have to stabilized it before we fix the tube, she even says she actually failed in her OSCE as she is unable to stabilize the needle. And again, everything went smoothly as I am able to stabilize the needle and took the blood.


picture taken: http://ohceps.oxfordtextbookofmedicine.com/content/vol1/issue1/images/small/graphic131.gif


This patient was clerk by the Chinese HO doctor that I mention about the other day, who left me eat alone and he join his colleague. So he went into the room when I was trying to take the blood from the patient. The patient was sitting and this HO says: Usually for student who just started to take blood, we advise the patient to lie on bed. So I asked: Should I ask him to lie down? He answered: Nah... It's ok never mind. -_-!!! so what's the point you telling me all that?


After taking the blood, we went out from the room. I was talking with Dr Lee and this HO patted my shoulder and says: Now you know how to draw blood! Very good! . In my heart was like: wth?! Am I that close with you?? You actually patted my back?! Wow! What a surprise!! Not even Dr Lee did that to me. As in I am already very friend with him...


Well, just when I started to work/study in hospital, you can see lots of different type of people in the ward, including those doctors, HOs, MOs. Some HO seem like look down on us, they will have that kind of look when we were in the ward, as in they never be a medical student and walk like us. Some are very helpful, just like the one who gave us 'motivational talk' the other day, and especially Dr Lee who teach me and let me try to take venepuncture.


I actually also witnessed and assisted in CVP line insertion. There is an old patient who was admitted on Thursday night and he is Chinese. When Dr. Malik doing ward round, he asked me to help him translate to chinese and take some brief history from the old patient. He is 90 years old and Dr. Malik think he might not understand Malay or English well. I was unexpected and so not prepare for him to ask me to translate. But I still tried my best.


When a HO is doing the CVP line insertion, she can't speak chinese either. She trying to tell this patient to move more to the left side so she can insert it into his right arm, but she can't speak chinese so I helped her to tell the old uncle to move to the left. She actually thanked me! For the very first time, I feel it is not wasted for me to learn chinese. I can speak different languages and broken Hokkien which really helps me in my future. When inserting the CVP line, the patient complain of pain. I really feel helpless. The only thing I can tell him is we are going to be done very soon, please bare with us for a little while.


Are doctors helping the patients? I can hardly answer now......



For the first week in HPJ, I've

witnessed in Echocardiogram and Lung function test.
performed 2 venepuncture. 1 by needle, 1 by vacuum tube.
assisted in CVP line insertion and blood gases arterial puncture.


Looking forward to more procedure to be done!!!

2 comments:

Pey Yein @ Penny said...

good job gal..i think u did a very good job for the very first week. keep up ur spirit and go the distance ya..you can do it and flea with it soon... all the best, my dear..u had my greatest blessings on you. =)

bluestarstsl said...

thanks dear!! i'm still a little stressed up as there are seriously tonnes of things to be understand and learn, especially theory part. i like practical more cause practice make perfect but not for theory~ so lazy to study!