macam2

Dasar pandang rakan sebelah

It’s a term I made up for a phenomenon that I have been observing in my batch and also in previous batches.

2 or 3 years back, I never would have thought that there would be many couples amongst my female and male colleagues. Maybe one or two lah, but now there’s plenty.

The spouses of those who got married early were non meddies. Me and azza used to discuss the unlikely possibility of an intra-batch marriage. When Nazhan and Marni got married during 4^th year, everyone was surprised by the acuteness of it all. Now I know of at least 4 other couples.

I guess when you’re in 4^th year, you realize that med school is nearly over and you’re still single, so you tend to look around for available people who attract you’re attention.

Not that it’s a bad thing or anything. I’m happy for them. May their relationships progress to a blessed marriage inshaAllah.

Territorial markers

I absolutely HATE male cats who wish to mark their territories with their foul-smelling urine. If it only put other cats off then I wouldn’t mind, but, the smell is utterly horrible (like faeces). This one cat just had to mark our door and shoe closet and also the corridor. Even in my anosmic (cannot smell) state due to my nasal congestion, I can still smell it. Going in and out of the room was pure torture to the nose.

Alhamdulillah it’s been cleaned up.

If I catch the cat in action, I’d pull its tail!

Internal medicine week 4

It’s already the middle of the posting. I have another 3 weeks before the end-of-posting exams with no revision week.

The medical wards are constantly full of patients. There have been many interesting cases in the wards. Spontaneous pneumothorax. Superior vena cava obstruction secondary to brochial carcinoma. Rare murmurs like aortic stenosis etc. (I like pan-systolic murmurs. They’re the easiest to identify.) Bronchiectasis (prominent clubbing). Asymptomatic gross splenomegaly. Hepatoma. Acoustic neuroma. Lymphomas and leukemias. Pulmonary embolism following a gynae operation to remove an endometrial carcinoma. Classical and atypical acute coronary syndrome presentations. Uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension. AEBA. AECOPD. Nephro cases (banyak sgt and usually very complicated). And much more.

And plenty of lovely ECG’s. I can now read ECG’s a bit better. Dulu asyek confuse je.

The lady with acoustic neuroma ( a tumour of the 8^th cranial nerve) puzzled the doctor as she presented with chronic diarrhea and vomiting for 4 months. She didn’t tell the doctor of her condition on admission as she had defaulted follow up due to the high cost of surgery. She had persistent headaches, deafness in her left ear and also reduced vision in her right eye. She only noticed her deafness when she heard the phone rang but couldn’t hear any voice using her left ear. At first she thought it was someone playing a prank but then she put the phone to her other ear and voila, she could hear loud and clear. Hehe.

One patient developed an erythematous vesiculo-pustular rash on the face, trunk and arms in the ward and the doctor asked me to do a spot diagnosis. I was clueless. Acne?. Rupe2nya I didn’t know how varicella-zoster infection aka chicken pox looked like hehe. The last time I had it was zaman kanak2 so u cant really blame me. I just knew it theoretically.

Since the new 2-year housemanship rotations include 4 months at the emergency department (ED) aka accident and emergency (A&E), now as part of our assessment, those in the medical posting have to do on-calls at the A&E on Sundays (Saturdays are for the surgery students), morning and evening shifts.

Penat jugak 5^th year ni. Some of my friends are already stressed out.