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]

time check: 11:38 PM