I got there half an hour early this morning. I met a nurse at the door to the academic centre who directed me to where I was told to go. I went to that office, butthere was no one there yet, so I decided to go for a walk around the grounds. It was absolutely freezing out and my breath formed little White puffs in the icy air as I walked. I could see a few patients in the A&E waiting room, but apart from that the hospital seemed as though it hadn't really woken up yet.
At nine, I went back to the office I was supposed to go to, but there was still no one there. I was kind of expecting this, I don't know why, it seemed too quiet or something. So I just walked back to the top of the stairs where there was a woman using the photocopying machines. I asked her if she knew where The woman I was supposed to go to was, and she didn't know who I was talking about so she brought me to a nice man called Noel. He tried to find the woman, and when he realised she wasn't in, he showed me how to use the pagers and phones to contact the team and gave me a locker. Then he told me where they were, and just as I was about to leave him and try find them in the maze of buildings, he said "sure I'll come with you for the walk". I was so happy when he said that because no doubt I would have got lost as soon as I left the academic centre!
We met the team in the redwood ward which has nice red curtains, and Noel went back to the academic centre. The team then went around the wards checking on the endocrinology patients who were mixed into wards among people with all kinds of things wrong with them. It was really interesting and fast paced, sometimes I felt sorry for the patients because although I knew the doctors cared about them, they didn't really look at them when they spoke as they were writing and Reading the charts.
We had a break for about 15 minutes in the cafe, all the team together. There is a student doctor called Ali on the team, and it was his first day today too. He is quiet when the other doctors are around but he's really nice, and I'm glad he's there because sometimes they forget I'm not a medical student and ask me the questions! So I just look at him and he answers.. They probably think I'm just a really stupid medical student haha..
After the break, I did filed charts, ordered tests, found patient records and x-rays and loads of other stuff with an intern called Carmel. She is absolutely lovely (and she never forgets I'm not a medical student so she expalains everything :) we walked around really fast and were constanty rushing from patient to patient, but it was my favourite part of the day. Carmel had to take blood from a woman with really bad alzheimers, and the poor woman kept screaming because she didn't understand what was happening. Her husband was with her, and bless him he was so cute he was so patient with her, and you could tell he really loves her. The. He was asking if she had made any progress and if Carmel thought she'd be disharged soon. When she said no his tone just dropped. That was the saddest part of the day :(
After loads of rushing around with Carmel, she told me to go have lunch with kassan another member of the team. He told me about where he went to college and asked about my life. I had been a bit wary of him initially, but he's actually really funny.
After lunch, I went to the clinic with kassan, where I worked with Dr. Wan for the rest of the day. It was much more relaxed than earlier in the day, which made me realise how tired I was. Dr Wan explained everything really well as he read the charts, and the. The patients woukd come in for a consult. Afterwards he recorded his notes on his taperecorder and explained his diagnosis. The patients were really friendly, and although some of the cases were similar, I found them all interesting. The clinic ended at 5:30 and my day was over.
Tomorrow I have to be there at 8 for breakfast and a meeting. I'm excited to go back, I just hope it goes as well as today :)
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