Med World "The Reckoning": Of Frustration, Guts and Premies.

Oh how ironic. Shortly after experiencing that high of love and joy, life decided to dish up a nice quart of hate. It has been a long time since I've actually felt that much passionate outrage, but really, suffice to say that there are some really horrible people in my med school class. Like you wonder how they made it through the selection sieve. Gossping, snickering, giggling, swearing... in front of patients, about their peers, etc. Seriously disgusting folk. I would not wish that kind of doctor on my worst enemy (well, okay, I'm only human, so maybe I would wish it on my worst enemy, but right now I don't even have a nemesis... except maybe these guys themselves... and I guess I still wouldn't wish it on them -imagine being sick and then dealing with docs with attitude and a mean streak -how awful!).

Otherwise, I am studying for my GI midterm which is in two days (this is a study break). I've done embryology, anatomy, biochem and half of histo... so just physiology and the other half of histo left. But that's just the first pass, and I always try to do two passes before an exam. So CRUNCH indeed!

A couple days ago I actually got to watch a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy (the rude crew was present and actually got told off by the attending -how embarassing for all of us there -but enough about them) -it was so cool! The poor guy having the colonoscopy had quite a few polyps in his large intestine, but apparently they were relatively small and so less likely to be malignant. The gastrointerologists removed most of them by biopsy, but one was large enough to require cauterization which was like lassoing the white lump of tissue with a wire and then running an electic current through it, essentially burning it off.

'Guess I was pretty lucky to see that -it's unfortunate that medically 'cool' procedures mean that the patients present more pathology. I really feel a whole ethical/moral thing about all of it, because you can't help feeling a rush of fascination and wonder. Like how dare I feel this in the wake of another human being's anxiety or pain (this patient was not in pain though, they were consciously sedated, and we actually can't really feel sharp pain in the colon the way you might closer to your skin). Although I suppose part of that rush has to do with also seeing how 'fixable' some of these things can be... at least to a certain extent. So far, after the heart, I think the GI tract is the next coolest organ.

I may have forgotten to mention that in early January, I actually did some shadowing in Neonatology at the Royal Vic. Premies (hospital-talk for 'premature babies') are really something else. Like really so helpless and so vulnerable, and you can't help feeling that over-brimming love towards them. But it's scary as hell too. I mean imagine, if you screw up, and that literal thing that looks like a doll, scrunches up it's face for the last time... the parents that have to bury their baby, never watching it grow, explore, learn and fall in love with the world. And the thing is, the premies already have names. First names. The docs and the nurses use the last names when they do rounds and all of that, which is really smart I think in terms of managing potential trauma. But when you see a new mother walk in and put her hands inside the phototherapy incubator and caress the tiny little pink fingers, cooing "Eva, sweetheart"... yeah, just imagine. Maybe that's why you never see the neonatologists smiling. I don't know, something about all that was disconcerting.

Okay, back to the books -this writing break was longer than I would have liked! Here's the soundtrack of my life/studying these days, Brandy's "Right Here (Departed)". I like to call it the "One Sweet Day" of the 2000's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdqwbJxMRWU

Yes, I am obsessed. But at least it's obsess-worthy.