A Meaningful Life

Taken at Bondi Beach during winter. This beach never fails to amaze me.

“For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens.”

Excerpt From: Gawande, Atul. “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.”

The sleep doctor

I am doing my anaesthetic rotation right now and to my dismay, I enjoy it so much. Many of my friends hate it because of its lack of human interaction but there is something about being on the end of the operation table, behind the screen created by the sterile drape, and ensuring the patient is in deep sleep so that he or she does not feel any pain. 

When I told my friends that I really like anaesthesia, they were surprised because they thought it would be too gloomy for me. I am surprised myself too.



I feel that anaesthesiologists do not get much credit they deserve. Imagine going through surgery fully awake and conscious. We would die from the pain, if anything else. 


The fourth case scheduled for the OT I was assigned to was a gynae-onco case. The patient was a lovely 57 years old lady who did not scream or yell when I inserted a second IV line on her hand. She had stage 4 ovarian cancer which was sticking to her bowel. I took a look at her CT and the radiology report. Her cancer was massive. It was bigger than a newborn size. Her husband has passed away and they had no kids. As a lady from a remote area in Malaysia, she thought what she was having could have been treated with traditional massage. She held my hand before she slept and asked me to pray for her.

My anaesthesiologists had discussions about her.

"This patient has diabetes, hypertension and congestive heart failure. Her ejection fraction is not great either"
"Her Hb was 8, then they transfused 2 pints. Now it's 10"
"Put arterial line and central venous line"
"I am going to put another IV line to anticipate things"


The Gynaecology resident came in and when she saw how my consultant was scrubbing in and getting ready to insert a central venous line.

" Ah, you guys are inserting a central venous line? That means this case will not be starting soon!"

My anaesthesiologist shot back.

"You do know that we won't be doing all these unless they are really necessary. And your department has the worst mortality rate. We are doing you a favour so that the patient does not die from massive blood loss as you guys cut her open."

Arterial line was inserted because she wanted real time more accurate blood pressure monitoring. Central venous line for not overloading the patient with fluid given her heart status that was unable to pump effectively. Arterial blood gasses were taken through out the surgery to ensure that all electrolytes were normal and she was not retaining carbon dioxide. Heart rate was kept to below 80 in order to not tire her heart. Emergency meds were on a tray to anticipate bad things. 


Medicine is more than just science and knowledge. It is an ever evolving art. Despite the stress and ever constant struggles, I am grateful to be a doctor. 

#GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amorusso

As a final year medical student, I don't have major exams. All we need to do is to get good PIAs ( Pre-Intern Appraisals) to pass every posting/rotation. This gives me plenty of time to ponder about where I am in my life.

After being diagnosed with failure-phobia ( which I will further discuss in subsequent postings when I have the commitment), I resort to reading motivational books. And my choice was #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso

Ignore my fluffy hairy legs as I have not waxed my legs for ages.

I highly recommend this book and there are some points in this book I need to reiterate in my life if I want to be a happier and more content person.

1. You'll appreciate your amazing career so much more when you look back  at your not-so-amazing  jobs in the past, and hopefully realise that you learned something from all of them.

well, I have not worked much except for being an english tutor for a few months and I figure helping around with ward work in the hospital does not fall under working too. However, the caveat here is, whatever bad crap that happened to me in the past happened so that I can appreciate the prospective good times. This includes the previous bad relationships.

2. When your goal is to gain experience, perspective and knowledge, failure is no longer a possibility. Failure is your invention.

When my mom told me that she does not agree with the idea of me working in Australia for my internship, I felt that my whole world shattered because I associate this with not being able to become a famous paediatrician which is equivalent to being a loser ( it still feels this way and I find myself crying every now and then ). Nevertheless, this quote helps me to feel better about my situation. Doing internship in Indonesia means I will gain more experience about other things that Australia is not able to offer ( you cannot do some procedures i.e lumbar puncture and pleural tap as an intern in Australia ) and I can offer the knowledge I have obtained from my rotation in Australia to the table. My goal is to gain MORE experience, perspective and knowledge to what I have hitherto learned. ( GREED IS GOOD)

3. Instead of spending my time trolling the forums and obsessing about what other sellers were doing, I focused on making my store as unique as possible.

HOLY COW. This should be my new mantra. I spend excessive amount of time obsessing about my acquaintances back home have achieved when I could have utilised the time, effort and money for my own betterment. I could have worked out so that I don't have to be jealous about their body. I could have studied so that when I bump into them, I don't have to feel inferior about my knowledge. I could have read more books. HECK, I COULD AND SHOULD HAVE SPENT MORE TIME ON THIS BLOG.

I highly recommend this book. And I figured, as a generation Y, we are just too bloody impatient. We want things fast. Hence, you see all the fast food and crazy diet pills being rampant. There are more points that I have learned from this book but I am not going to list all of them here as I don't want to get sued by her and I feel reading the book itself would offer the most substantial amount of benefits for those lost souls just like me.

I am still lost. I am still figuring out my way. But this book made me realise that this is not the end of the world. 

Finishing medical school is not the end. It is merely the beginning. 

give me a freaking job already

Here I am sitting by myself in a coffee shop at Hilton Hotel in Sydney CBD writing this blog post.

Well, so a lot of things have been happening in the past few months. Let's recap what have been happening in my life.

1. I went through a general medicine/aged care rotation and breast surgery at Monash Health hospital and they were amazing. Learned a lot and realised how much I have to improve to be a competent intern.

2. I applied for jobs in 2017 and hopefully I will get one. Really hoping that I will either get one in Melbourne or Darwin.

3. I got a really bizarre but somewhat good e-mail from one of the hospitals which essentially says that because I am not Australian, I was not shortlisted for the interview however they are happy to include me into the PMCV internship matching thingy that is happening in a week or so. So if I do get a job, I will be hearing from them in a month or so. CROSSING MY FINGERS.

4. Right now I am in my last week of my elective rotation at Nepean Hospital and loving neurology because I have an awesome team! Not to mention, my resident is such an eye candy and I just love staring at his beautiful face.

5. J has moved on and got a new girlfriend. So happy about this. I am honestly ceebs about him and how stupid I am to have made so many stupid decisions in the past. Not going to settle for futureless guy ever again.

Kinda seeing T, this ABC guy from Melbourne, but honestly, if things do not work out, I cannot be arsed to do anything or to cry about it. It is just too much effort and stuffs. I am more bothered about getting an internship or job or figuring out how my future is going to turn out to be honest. I am so sick of not being able to stand on my own two feet. I know I need to hakuna my tatas but do you know that feeling that you are just so ready to earn your own moolah and you want to be independent and start giving back to the people who have given up so much for you. Basically that is what I feel and honestly I feel I am not bad at all. I am quite hardworking and keen to learn.

I am just tired of feeling like crap all the time and i just want to get a job now. Hopefully I do get a job. Otherwise I might as well kill myself. LOL. 

September goals

i cannot believe that it is september already. 10 more weeks to final exam and i will be going to the labour room starting next week, delivering babies!

it is going to be a roller coaster from here but i will try my best to not disappoint myself.

i am planning to:
1. stay healthy! nothing is worst than getting sick when exam is nearing. i am going to drink hot lemon honey every morning and get my workout done.
2. study efficiently and smartly. gonna try covering most of the GP topics in this month and start revising all the internal medicine and general surgery topics
3. save money. if i am going to buy myself a fancy watch by next year as i have been repeatedly telling myself, i better start saving money seriously from now on as those watches are costly as hell though i am getting the cheapest option.
4. throw away unwanted stuffs and put unnecessary things in a box. the least thing i need is a mess in my room when my mind is a mess due to exam stress.

love at first sight

hi lovelies! sorry for the MIA. medschool was busy but today i finally submitted my final assignment. fingers crossed i score well!

so a very pertinent question....



do you guys believe in love at first sight?

so i met this guy through a mutual friend when i went to KL. and he vouched that it was love at first sight for him to me. and i am still shocked at the idea? given that he is 27 years old and i always thought your logic should be slightly more dominant at this age?


he said we share so many similarities and he loves how i am so playful...? i am not trying to be vain here!


i don't want to get heartbroken and repeat the same mistakes over and over again.


so i told him that i am not down for sex since i am keeping it for marriage.

he told me he respects my decision and gave me his ring as a promise that he will never ask for that.


i tried giving the ring back but he was so persistent.


he said he is confident i would be his.


so yesterday he came to visit me in JB and we spent the night drinking and i fell asleep in his hotel room ( no hanky panky business i swear! ) and he said he loves me.


help?


i don't know what to do in this situation.


it sounds too good to be true, no?

how schizophrenic people view the world

as i am just about to embark on my psychiatry posting, i thought it would be interesting to post this video here. 

this video basically shows us how people with schizophrenia view the world. it is unfair for us to be scared of them and i think we need to understand them a bit more just to make the world a better place?

just give it a go. i promise you it will not take long.

thank you :)

p.s : i do not own this video, i found it on youtube and if i am not mistaken, someone from UC Davis created this. :) xx

the truth about learning

as you all know, i am in my fourth year in medical school. it is crazy, competitive and hectic. i always feel stupid and belittled by the vast amount of knowledge my peer knows way ahead before me. and every time i thought that i was catching up, they seemed to have gone another mile.

sometimes i just cry in my room because i am so overwhelmed. i feel like i am this small girl who is trapped in a 22 years old girl who is figuring out her life and at the same time i am a tortoise which has to catch up with the hare, and unlike in the world wide known fable, the hare we are talking about is anything but lazy.

i just want to be able to absorb things like a sponge.

learn things and make sure that they stay in my head.

and then i come across this piece of advice albert einstein has written for his son..

“That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes.”

this quote really opened my eyes.

for those of you who are facing the same difficulty, i hope this can help.

ciao

xoxo

my calming trick

as the new semester for my clinical year posting just started, i find myself still getting the hang of it and trying to get back into the pace of studying.

seeing my friends holding a book whenever they go has caused a small amount of anxiety in me. it feels as if i am not studying enough compared to them. these thoughts kept swimming in my head that made me unable to sleep last night.


so what did i do?


i made myself a cup of hot milk with honey and watched this....

there is something about nigella lawson. watching her cook always calms me down.

is there a show that you always watch whenever you are anxious or stressed?

love to hear from you!

xoxo

my week in pictures

giant tortoises at the singapore's national zoo

tanuki or japanese racoon dog. <3

a sweet surprise from a total darling to celebrate my exam's good result

money money caching

i have not written any post in such a long time.

my life has been rather flat. in a good way.

no drama. no fight. 

occasional tears, yes.


however, there is one problem which has been bugging me for quite a while though i never brought it up in this blog.

how does a medical student save money?

my family is not poor by any mean. we are not rich either.

and i, as a girl, have a lot of wants. for the time being i am just dying for a really nice watch to replace my old one which is going kaputt.

any idea on how to save money? i cut off my gym membership which helps me save quite a bit. i do not go out to parties or nice restaurants. i try to eat at home unless for lunch because eating outside is way more convenient. even so, i still eat at random chinese places which offer hearty soup at a wallet-friendly price.

i have been saving but i still think it is not enough.



any idea on how to do this? would love to hear some advices