New Week, New Ward

With a new week started, I'm finished with Paediatrics and off to Medicine. While there was a lot of waiting around on paeds, when we were doing things we had a lot of fun - and learnt a lot, too, of course! I think the highlight of the week was going around the Maternity Ward with the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) resident, doing neonate checks on all the newborns before they could be sent home. One thing's for sure - finding the femoral pulses on a newborn is a LOT harder than on an adult! So now I know how to do a newborn check, as well as what to do if some of the results are not quite normal.

We also looked after baby girl who made the national news, after her father poured petrol over her mother and his two children before setting them alight. Thankfully, all patients are fine, but last report I heard the baby had been sent to another city to be looked after by a specialised burns unit, to ensure her burns healed well and there was no significant scar tissue.

Medicine has been very busy - I'm just shadowing the resident and registrar, but it is quite an effort to keep up! I'm on the endocrinology service for the week, which seems like it will be great as a learning experience, as the patients all have multiple co-morbidities and are complex cases. I hope that doesn't make me sound too cold-hearted, saying that patients with many problems are a good thing - it's just the way medical education is, that we need to take the best opportunities to learn that we can.

It was a draining day. The residents have all just rotated into the department, and the endocrine reg for the next couple of days is doing relief cover, so the three of us were completely unfamiliar with the patients. This meant we spent the entire day rounding on patients. The resident said things should settle down, though, once the regular registrar is back mid-week.

The resident I'm with is eager to teach, which I am grateful for. She's suggested I have a think about what I'd like to learn, and I can give her a list tomorrow and she'll try to make the time to teach me later in the week. I've only got a few things on my list so far, so I guess I'll try to add over the next couple of hours! Although, on second thoughts, what I have got should keep me plenty busy, so a few things for one week are probably enough.