8.8.06
i am officially a druggie.
yeps, i injected myself at the one week rural attachment. was to teach us empathy, anticipation and technique all in one.
apart from that, the other highlights of the week included a trip down to a primary healthcare centre. i followed this worker who did home visits to followup on patients who had just been discharged from an affliated hospital. she was mainly assigned to the elderly and paliative care. she would clean wounds, change dressings, and talk to the patients regarding their concerns and evaluate their health risk factors to see if any further exacerbation of the disease could be prevented (cos mainly the patients are elderly and retired and at the end-stage of their lives). it was nice to know that such services were provided to help the sick live the last few years of their lives with dignity, to help them alleviate their pain. her patient practitioner relationship was also more personal and intimate, and she would drop by patients' houses to talk to them and make sure they were healthy and fine, which was great for the lonesome and ill-connected elderly (think holistic healthcare and mental health).
it touched me though, when i observed her treating this guy with parkinson's. i mean, i've seen patients like these in the hospitals before. but him, sleeping in front of the tv in an armchair, twitching uncontrollably, delirious and unable to communicate properly even anymore, just felt wrong. nobody should be wasting away like that, i thought. especially not in their own house. in a hospital you expect to see sick people, so its fine. but this felt wrong. the photos hung up on the walls around him, of his younger days when he was bright and brilliant, did not help. one just cannot imagine that the young man in those pictures, is the same man slumped over, wrinkled and weathered, in the armchair in front of me right now.
my time at the icu was fun too. got to take the temp, bp, resp rate and pulse of 3 patients. phew, thankfully my course taught me how to take bp like just last wk. i only practiced for 5 mins though and there i was carrying it out already. hope i managed to look somewhat professional. anw, i enjoyed my time at the icu so much that i voluntarily went back to the emergency department of the hospital to tag alongside one of the interns after our schedule for the day was over. not a bad experience there too. learnt more about xrays and stuff. and saw a few more cases.
oh yar, the yr 3-5s were all very friendly and hung around with us alot. we yr 1s speculate that it's because the rural place had not much entertainment and hence we were like smth new n exciting for the wk to them ;p but anw we were really appreciative that they were extremely helpful and tried their best to teach us so much. special mention goes to leon, this really crazy angmoh who always said really random stuff. he actually said that he din want to visit singapore although he's heard so much good stuff about it because 1. they dun allow him to chew gum (ok that made sense) 2. they dun hav the dish with only one noodle.. which is where we interrupted him and asked him what kind of dish this was. so apparently theres this dish in australia where they dont cut the noodle at all so the entire dish consists of one strand of noodle. this seemed fine until he told us that they had to cook it in a really long testtube reaching all the way up so as to not break the noodle. lame!!! i'd never forget that.
of course, nothing can be more eventful than ethan CASTRATING A GOAT SHEEP. i still cant believe he did it. but unfortunately, thats the way we get mutton lamb on our platter.
all in all, rural week was really fun. a nice break from monotonous sch life.
our visit to a primary industry: orange world - the citrus farm.
si huan this is for u and ur fascination with babies! i'm gg to make u green with envy at all the angmoh babies i'll take. compared to only the asian ones u get in singapore!
ps. more photos will be posted once i get my hands on them! my cam batt is so screwed i keep having to use other ppl's cams to take my desired photos. grr dun like it at all the process of collating is tedious. shall wait patiently till the end of the yr to get a decent cam back at singapore tho.
the 3 sisters.
cute candid of me grooving.
a photolog dedicated to mel. that funky gal. [grins]
i fluttered by;
12:05 PM
