Monday, July 30, 2007

the three harry potters

trina's dad bought several harry potter books (the seventh, of course) while he was in bangkok. the cool thing was there were two different kinds of book covers - the british, cartoony one, and an adult romance novel-ish one. weird. a few days later, kris bought the book with the american cover. so, with all three book covers under one roof, i did a mini photo shoot.
L-R: rodney with british; trina with adult romance novel-ish; kris with american

clinical rotations start on monday (tomorrow/today?). our group's first rotation is in community medicine. we have to go to a community in pasay to "take care" of patients there. we also have a bunch of papers to write. sigh. i guess this means goodbye to classroom work and hello to the real medical world.


verse for the day:
the Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom i take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. [psalm 18:2]

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

pain scale score of 10

because feeling what patients feel makes good doctors out of med students, our friendly pediatricians organized this "fun" activity for our class. they made us inject each other normal saline solution intradermally with a freakin' 23 gauge needle. too much med speak? let me explain. normal saline solution is just very clean water with salt. injecting intradermally means you inject the stuff into the layer right underneath the visible skin. a 23 gauge needle means the needle is huge, and i'm not exaggerating.

imagine that it's 8:00 am, and you came to the hospital straight out of bed. now imagine that it's your first time poking someone with a needle. the room's freezing, your friend is shaking out of pure fear, your classmates are staring at your every move (you hear gasps every now and then), and your hand's shaking so much you can hardly hold the syringe straight. and once you poke the needle through the skin, your good friend throws a rather colorful curse at you (or the pain you just inflicted), and/or starts screaming. what's worse is the pain was just as bad as kathy - my poor partner - described it. i screamed. dave screamed, and he was only watching me get poked. the boys in my group screamed. my conclusion? a 23 gauge needle is too huge to inject anything intradermally.

as it turned out, the doctors made the succeeding groups use tuberculin syringes. this simply means their stupid needles were much smaller than ours.


verse for the day:
heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. freely you have received, freely give. [matthew 10:8]

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

why i cannot be...

a surgeon: anatomy is my worst subject.
an internist: i cannot diagnose dammit.
an ophthalmologist: there are only two emergencies in ophtha. boooooring!
an otorhinolaryngologist: too much body fluids involved
an ob-gynecologist: see above
a psychiatrist: talking to crazy people makes me crazy.
a neurologist: i could never find the lesion.
a pathologist: formalin makes me high.
a radiologist: all x-rays look normal to me. and don't get me started on CT scans.
an orthopedist: open fractures scare the heck outta me
a dermatologist: you need the looks for this specialty. erhm.... >.<
a pediatrician: i never know the pediatric values.
an oncologist: my brain can't handle all of those stupid oncogenes!
an infectious diseases specialist: i have this feeling that i'm perpetually immunocompromised.

sigh. tara rivera, general practitioner, does NOT sound appealing. i should probably re-think this.


verse for the day:
therefore we do not lose heart. though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. [2 corinthians 4:16-18]