Medicine is taking over my life... I'm so damn behind in both my studies and blog entries and in some respects I'm frustrated with myself. The Medical Conditions are interesting in their own right, but I got a backlog to catch up on which reduces the fun due to the added pressure of going through a sheer volume.
In the meantime, here are some quotes that I've collected so far in Clinical Rotations. Enjoy...
From Consultants:
“When you
get married, the expenses go up a lot more…See the trick is that they’re
working when you meet them for the first time, but after you marry them and
have children, they quit their job and you have to support them and the children
- school fees, cars, holiday trips etc.”
“When
people apply to us for a Trainee Position, we can already tell which people
we’re going to accept.”
“You think
you’re busy as a Medical Student? Wait til you become a Consultant.”
“We try to
avoid Mediterranean patients as much as possible, they come in with all of
these physical complaints and we usually don’t find anything… it’s usually their
way of somatizing a mood condition such as depression or anxiety.”
“Didn’t you
know it’s a birthright in Australia?
“If anything wrong happens to me it’s your fault.” ”
“3 years
will go by like a blip.”
“I think
you’re in the wrong career.” (when I said I wanted to do a specialty that had
office hours, Monday – Friday with no on-call.)
“You need
to get a hobby, because Medicine will take over your whole life.” (to our tute
group)
“That’s to
teach you a lesson, that you chose the wrong career.” (when I said that we only
had ~4 weeks of Summer Holidays.)
“I am
bitter and jaded, there are all these obese patients and they don’t put in the
effort to lose weight through diet or exercise even though we try to help them
do so.”
“99% of
patients are fat coz they have shit diets.”
“They don’t
want to fail you, the government has already invested so much money into your
education.”
“When you
choose a Specialty to train in, you really need to consider if you’re happy
dealing with the bread-and-butter conditions for 20+ years coz that is what
you’re mostly going to deal with…There are a lot of burnt out consultants in their
40’s and 50’s because they see the same condition over and over again and it
gets to the point where it feels monotonous.”
“Yeah he
(another Consultant) lives at this hospital, it’s like his second home.”
“Yes that’s
me in the photo, when I was young and free…”
“You need
to know what conditions to look for before you start taking a history and doing
a physical examination.”
“Don’t
always believe what other people say about a patient. There will be times where
you are right and everybody else is wrong, so you need to know how to do the
history taking and physical exam yourself.”
“Medical
Scientists can’t get sued, so if something goes wrong in the lab, they’ll try
to go after the Pathologist.”
“The future
of Medicine in Australia
will be very different…you will be doing a lot of handovers due to 8-hr shifts
due to the Medical Graduate Tsunami…you will be practicing conservative
Medicine where you order less tests/investigations unless they’re very
necessary.”
“There are
a lot of Asian Med Students who are studying Medicine due to parental
pressure…if they’re only in it coz of their parents, it’s going to fuck them up
later on in life.”
“You need
to be genuinely interested about a Medical Specialty…there are a lot of
specialists out there who are not dumb but still managed to complete the
training program, but their lack of enthusiasm manifests through multiple
things that we politely call “hindrances” within the hospital system.”
“When
you’re stressed, it’s hard to recall Mnemonics! Try to learn things
conceptually instead.”
From Registrars:
“As a Med
Student, you have the most opportunities to practice physical exams and search
for interesting findings on patients, coz when you do Internship, you’ll be too
busy with paperwork to have any time.”
“I just
don’t feel happy. I work extra shifts so I can feel useful…”
“When you
work in the ED, patients with Borderline Personality Disorder will be your
bane.”
“Why does
everyone talk about that? … Oh we just enjoy our work, the money you get in
Internship will be much more than what you receive as a student on Youth
Allowance… My friend works at Kraft and she gets paid a monthly salary… They
should make doctors earn a monthly salary instead so they have to do all of the
hours they need to do without complaining.” (in response to my mention of
unrostered overtime.)
“If you
don’t want to work your ass off, be a GP.”
From Nurses:
“Nurses are
the ones that do most of the work.”
“The
Hospital can’t run without us.”
“I often
feel that in Palliative Care, people take things too far and give patients
unnecessary interventions that just prolong their suffering even though they’re
dying… Their family just wants everything done coz they know the staff will do
it for them for free.”
“There will
always be a proportion of doctors and nurses that have substance abuse issues, so
you have to be mindful of that.”
“When I
started smoking as a nursing student long ago, it was a common thing for us to
do and a ritual. During our breaks we’d sit around a table and light our
cigarettes together…I don’t really know if I actually got addicted to the
nicotine given that I’m a light smoker, but you get addicted to the action
itself.”
“If a
patient is being aggressive to you, the trick is to try and look calm.”
“All of the
Spinal (canal stenosis) patients smoke weed. We sometimes have them get
admitted to ED due to being too stoned.”
“If you
learn the information, the work becomes more stimulating because you can tell
the subtle differences.”
From patients:
“The thing
is to try to find people who share similar interests to you.”
“The notion
of Medicare has completely distorted people’s perceptions about the level of
healthcare they can receive for free…they expect and want everything for free
without realizing the true cost of the services, tests and treatments
provided.”
“You can
tell who your real friends are by how they respond when you ask if they’re
actually coming to visit you when you’re sick in the hospital.”
From other people:
“Don’t lose
that curiosity!”
