You, Me and Sri

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For those of you who can't literally READ MY MIND, that was to the tune of the 2.5 Men theme, which I've just spent the last hour watching on day 7 of my a million days-with-no-lie-in-oh-poor-Geoff-isn't-life-hard stint.

But let us not get ahead of ourselves...

Day 1.

The highlight of today was my first attempt at delivering a presentation to 30 odd medical students about the wonders of the FOOT scheme. Teaching is one of the things I'm most keen to get involved in during medical school, mostly because I know how crap some of the teaching we got was and I think I can do better, but also because I have a romanticised image of myself in a corduroy jacket with suede arm patches casually exuding knowledge into a room full of eager minds.

Though given that I've never been party to such a thing nor sat in a room full of eager minds I don't quite know where I got that idea.

Appled up to the MAX with my iPad and tethered iPhone slide progressor, I walk into teaching room 4. Everyone is already asleep or grappling with the inch thick book of timetables and other hypnotica they have just been given.

10:05 Audience Member: "I bet the first thing he does is make a stupid joke and then makes some crazy arm gestures".
10:06 "So I bet you were thinking the FOOT scheme had something to do with inches and feet, right... rigggght?" I ask the sea of blank faces, gesticulating wildly, "No? OK Moving on"

All in all it went OK, sadly there was a lack of bikini clad babes coming up at the end to ask me about how they get involved in teaching but such is life. Though obviously I only like bikini clad women because of their personalities.

Day 2:

There is so little going on today that 3 of us decide to bugger off the ward and go do something that might progress our careers. (Don't worry, kids, there was still an abundance of doctors around to care for the 2-3 patients we had).

I go off to spend the morning with my consultant in clinic. Like theatres, I don't much like clinic, but I have a feeling that will improve during my career. As a medical student, you sit there smiling wanly at the patient knowing full well they hate the fact you are in there and occasionally laugh a dry unfelt laugh when someone makes a joke, occasionally you learn something, and even more occasionally you get to do something. Unfortunately in this clinic not only was I playing the part of the medical student, I was even sitting next to one too. To make matters worse I have a dark feeling he knew much more about ENT than I do, so maybe I was sitting in the right place.

(Note: To clarify, that was for humour only, I know a shit load about ENT *cough*)

The nurse helping out in this clinic, unlike most nurses I must say, seemed to have recently lost several IQ points in a cutthroat game of Intelligence Poker when his straight flush just didn't cut the mustard and his opponent took half his brain cells as a trophy. Translation: The guy was pretty dim. He was forever getting in the way of the consultant, meandering around the room in never ending attempt to coat his entire torso with patient ID labels, failing to get the endoscope cleaned and generally being a clutz. To make matters worse whenever a patient left the room he would collapse exhaustedly into the examination chair, providing us all with a fantastic view of his crotch.

Midway through the consultation we brutally stabbed him to death, hid him in a sharps bin and went for coffee. But shhhhhh don't tell anyone.

(Note: To clarify, that was for humour only, I only stab people who f**k with my bludz, aight? and by stab people I mean with a needle, by 'who f**k with my' I mean 'from whom I need to take' and by 'aight' I mean 'is that alright, do you fully understand?')

Day 3:

We have a new registrar today, her name is Miss Paddy Croque-O-Gold McGuiness O'Leary. Actually it isn't, but for anonymity reasons I'm going to call her that, so DEAL WITH IT. It's also several weeks since we hatched from our cocoons, like those Oruk 'Hai Saruman was always so excited about, and became 'real' doctors so we're keen for the ward round to be uber slick in an attempt to impress said new registrar and thus allow us to bend her to our will (and our will is to get all our DOPS MOPS POPS and GOPS assessments signed off on our, together now, ePortfolios). Gosh what a long sentence.

Anyway we failed.

09:30 McRegistrar: "So this guy is all set for his operation tomorrow, the one that was cancelled last week because someone let him eat"?
          Geoff: "Pffft, chyea, of course, we wouldn't like anything stupid like THAT happen again oh No No No No No"
          Churchill: "Ooooh yus yus yus yus"
          McRegistrar: "And he's had a pre-op ECG"
          Geoff: "Well, we had to do one after he had that heart attack last week..."
          McRegistrar: "Sorry his what?"
          Geoff: "His heart.,.. attack....?"
          McRegistrar: "Does the anaesthetist know about this?"
          Geoff: "The Who?"
          Tommy: "Seeee me, feeeel me"
          McRegistrar: "The anaesthetist, the anaesthetizor, Mr Anaesthetic, the dude with the Jackson Juice?"
          Entire Team: *cough* "well er, it's just that er you know his heart and er the cardiology mumble mumble mumble"

So it was that we made ourselves look like total idiots. Again. It's all fine, though, because Sam and I went and got pissed up at World Service and put the world to rights by smashing up some shops and steeling shit cuz it's free innit.

Day 4

13:20 My pager goes off. This confuses me slightly as I live 20 miles away from the hospital and it's my day off. A text message explains the situation.

"Hi it's your students here, we tried bleeping you but no reply. Are you available for teaching next week either Monday morning of Wednesday afternoon?"
"Good day", I reply, "Day off so can't reply to bleeps, but how about Wednesday afternoon?"
"We have a lecture then" (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!) "how about some other time?"

It's fine really though, cos let us never forget how much it sucks ass being a med student.

Day 5

14:00 "Jaja, so back in Joburg we saign ooff ePortfolios with a gun, bru" says my consultant slurping at coffee that was presumably bought at some point by me "but eef you inseest I'll saign eet on the computer. T I ENT ja?"
I've finally managed to get an appointment to get one of the two mandatory initial meetings sorted on my ePortfolio (the bane, as you may have guessed, of my life). The consultant, despite speaking only in a faux Leonardo Di Caprio-esque accent, is actually pretty nice which is convenient as he RUNS THE ENTIRE POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMME. He also wants me to get involved in an audit which might help me actually get a job so everything is well.

What is NOT well is the fact that I cannot for the life of my track down the other guy I need to sign off my stuff. I even wrote an e-mail to the foundation programme coordinator begging for help

"Don't worry", came the reply "He has been on holiday and I'm sure you'll hear from him soon@. That was 6 months ago and I've heard nothing.

OK so it was like yesterday, leave me alone.

NOTE: Do not read the next sentence unless you are a) someone who works here and b) know about star trek (not that I do, because I'm not a f*cking FAG, geek)
We spend the afternoon trying to stop a Star Trek villains nose from bleeding before he seals us inside a cave on a planet forever and eventually succeed.

On call again in the evening and nothing happens. Very little happens. We are beginning to suspect that I repel patients like some kind of... repelling.... agent.

Day 6:

On the ward again, I just caint wait to get on the ward again, do do do do do do do do do do do, just caint wait to get on the ward again.

08:00 Kat has FOOLISHLY admitted two perfectly well patients who CLEARLY don't need to be on here. We mock her relentlessly.
08:05 One of those patients has a White Cell Count of WHAT?
08:10 We put that patient on IV antibiotics and thank the baby jesus that she was admitted. You win again Kat, I curse, shaking my fist at the heavens (where Kat, presumably, lives)

09:00 Sri, for whom I am now developing a huge man-crush, takes me out for breakfast and we have a relaxing coffee in the Mess (a room I am to become quite familiar with over the next couple of days).
10:00 The consultant who is far too tanned and muscly for my self confidence to cope with appears and makes us do stuff. The stuff is pretty basic but somehow takes me ages.
11:00 "Now, if you just hold here, bend the cannula over THERE and then push it in HERE", instructs my PATIENT "then you won't get the vein exploding in your face like on the other arm". I'm beginning to grow irritated at the fact that my patients are invariably superior cannulators to me but we never got TOLD at Med School and we never had any PRACTISE because we were all so busy taking lengthy PSYCHIATRIC HISTORIES and dying our hair blonde.
13:00 Sri's wife delivers delicious curry to us at the doctors mess. Suck on THAT, Ollie's mum! (Who both loves curry and hates Asians, what a dichotomy).
15:00 "When I was young I was such a bad little kid", sings the Dentist SHO as she stabs her patient in the arm for the 9th time in an attempt to put a cannula in. In the end I take over and ace the job, proving that I am, at least, less terrible than someone who has had literally no experience whatsoever.

Boom.

20:00 Kat appears to take over and delivers cake. This is awesome.
21:00 I get home and realise I've taken the on-call bleep with me. People are probably dying horribly from Ear/Nose/Throat problems and noone can hear them scream (because they are in space).
21:25 Midway back to Derby I get through to Kat who explains that she can just get the bleep forwarded to her number.
21:50 Sobbing at the lack of sleep I'm about to get I eat my reheated lasagna and then go to bed.

Day 7:

Still here, watched 2.5 Men. Started writing this blog.

To Be Continued.

Tune In Next Week For More "Trust Me, I've Been On Nights For 3 Days And Think That The Walls Are Talking To Me"

Adios