Work - at last!
Well, it's 4pm and I have actually done some work!!! Admittedly, I have only done one consult and an ETT, but I got to interact with my Consultant and feel marginally useful, even if all I recommended was as per the admitting team. I managed to drag it out (again, a half hour max job at home) over several hours though, mainly as every other team in the hospital wanted to see him and he kept disappearing for various imaging and interventional radiological procedures, which would take about a billion hours to organise in the UK, but they seem much more blase about that kind of thing here. I've not quite decided whether that is a good thing or not. I have a very good Consultant though, which is great. Shame it's only for another 2 days. If I could stay on this ward and actually have some work to do then I think I would quite enjoy the next few months. At least Geriatrics will look good on my CV, being broadly equivalent to General Medicine in the UK, if not over here. I was supposed to see 2 patients in clinic today, which I was really psyched up about, but they both DNA'd. I might get to see someone on Friday morning though.
They have very sophisticated ETTs here - instead of a treadmill, so I suppose it should really be an EBT. They also make the patients do spirometry at the same time, and you have to take manual BPs througout. The 12 lead trace and the haemodynamic response measures are pretty much the same as we have, but the pulmonary component adds a new dimension. Yet again, the MRCP came in useful, as I was able to confidently say that her flow-volume loop was normal. Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for the myriad of numbers which flashed up on screen, with not a TV (although rather worryingly, a VT), RV or FRC in sight. From the reference data, it all seemed OK though, and compatible with normal respiratory physiology. I was reading that 1 in 10,000 people die during ETTs and that 3 in 10,000 will have some sort of major event. I've luckily only had 2 people have severe chest pain persist after an ETT, and they were both on the same day, naturally a clinic day.
Yesterday was pretty quiet, apart from one bleep, which turned out to be someone wanting the other Resp. Reg. I did loads of reading and decided to learn about surgery. I also did an MRCP Part 1 paper out of interest, to see if I could still pass. I got 72%, which would be a pass today, but in the days of negative marking, as this 1997 paper was, I might have been pushing it a little. I suppose if I had been working by negative marking, I wouldn't have answered a lot of questions, though so who knows.
Ian is working 1-11pm for the next 2 days so I'm looking forward to the weekend, seeing as the evening will be spent in the company of Mr. Wombat. Mr. Wombat is an amazingly lifelike hand puppet which Ian bought me. Although he is cute and cuddly, unfortunately he's a pretty poor conversational partner.
They have very sophisticated ETTs here - instead of a treadmill, so I suppose it should really be an EBT. They also make the patients do spirometry at the same time, and you have to take manual BPs througout. The 12 lead trace and the haemodynamic response measures are pretty much the same as we have, but the pulmonary component adds a new dimension. Yet again, the MRCP came in useful, as I was able to confidently say that her flow-volume loop was normal. Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for the myriad of numbers which flashed up on screen, with not a TV (although rather worryingly, a VT), RV or FRC in sight. From the reference data, it all seemed OK though, and compatible with normal respiratory physiology. I was reading that 1 in 10,000 people die during ETTs and that 3 in 10,000 will have some sort of major event. I've luckily only had 2 people have severe chest pain persist after an ETT, and they were both on the same day, naturally a clinic day.
Yesterday was pretty quiet, apart from one bleep, which turned out to be someone wanting the other Resp. Reg. I did loads of reading and decided to learn about surgery. I also did an MRCP Part 1 paper out of interest, to see if I could still pass. I got 72%, which would be a pass today, but in the days of negative marking, as this 1997 paper was, I might have been pushing it a little. I suppose if I had been working by negative marking, I wouldn't have answered a lot of questions, though so who knows.
Ian is working 1-11pm for the next 2 days so I'm looking forward to the weekend, seeing as the evening will be spent in the company of Mr. Wombat. Mr. Wombat is an amazingly lifelike hand puppet which Ian bought me. Although he is cute and cuddly, unfortunately he's a pretty poor conversational partner.
posted by Ian and Claire Tuck @ 10:59 PM
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