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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

cancer, blood and infectious

That is my current rotation. The proper medical name for my rotation is haematology, oncology, infectious disease and breast. It seems there are a lot of topic need to be covered in this block. However, the timetable is a bit relaxed compared to my previous rotation.

First impression, the block is interesting and the patient are a bit challenging. There are few patients in the ward and many of them are facing incurable disease and most of them will be going into palliative care. This is challenging because this is one of the field in medicine where there are not much that can be done to cure the disease.

Majority of the oncology patients will be treated for side effect of chemotherapy or radiation such as nausea and diarrhoea (loose bowel motion). Interviewing patients with incurable cancer who are going to die within few days, months or years is a thought-provoking experience. It reminds me of my own experience watching my relatives who have passed away. It will remind you the temporal nature of this life.

5 comments:

SoFie NuR said...

cancer mmg menakutkan...mintak2 dijauhkan dr penyakit sebegini...

Anonymous said...

constant reminder of death is definitely a humbling reminder of our puny existence. i wonder if doctors has ever been immunised from such feelings especially the ones facing death almost everyday.

Hafiz said...

sofie: yes, it is scary and quite sudden. anyone can get it and sometimes it is not curable. even the treatment is quite painful.

moshimoshi: this is an interesting observation. many doctors become immune to sick person. not to say that they are not empathic but this is one of the coping method used by health workers such as doctors and nurses.

in term of facing death, there are two extremes. one extreme is the doctors feel overwhelmed by the death of their patients and on another extreme, are the doctors that does not feel anything when their patient passed away,

the best method i reckon is to be somewhere between these two extreme :)

TeacherNunu said...

blood?uhhh lemah semangat den:))

kat tb2 ada cite pasal dr..tajuk dia healing hands .tapi drama hong kong.ada sorang dr tu, ada penyakit tapi as a dr, dia langsung tak nak terima hakikat yg dia tuh ada penyakit..dr pun owang biasa gak kan..same je ngan yglain.betul tak dr ?

Hafiz said...

betul tu..doktor hanya manusia biasa, kadangkala boleh tersilap dalam merawat pesakit...