Medical Rotation

Alhamdulillah, I have finished my medical rotation. After 5 weeks of spending time following a general medical team, there has been lots of stuff that I've learned yet at the same time, I managed to find out the limit of my knowledge. Clearly, after studying medicine for 6 years, there are still a lot that I don't know.

6 years of studying medicine does not really teach you how to works as a doctor. There seems to be a big gap on how to put all your medical knowledge into practise. Doctors do lots of paper works and referral. Medical school won't teach you how to fill in those paper works. You are supposed to observe it from the interns during this semester and learned it by yourself.

Referring patients to the other specialty is not an easy task to do. Interns are supposed to refer any suitable patients to the specialist for further management. The most difficult part of this process is to answer questions from specialist on reason for referral. I've seen how interns were scared to death when referring to the specialist. If you are not able to answer the questions from the specialist, the referral won't be accepted and you have to tell this to your own consultant.

Many patients who are admitted to the hospital require lots of medical imaging such as chest X-ray, CT scan and MRI. Radiology department is always busy and it is not easy to get a slot for your own patient. Somehow, the young doctor has to plead or find convoluted ways to get permission from the radiologist. Asking for permission to do medical imaging for your patient will always be one of the most difficult tasks for an intern.

Drug chart is one of the most common tasks that every young doctor will do. Yet up to now, I have never been taught formally about all of the doses of the medication. The university asks us to learn it by doing online course.

In the last 5 weeks, I have learned more on how to do my future job more efficiently than learning anything on medical knowledge. Hopefully, my next two rotations will be interesting :)

وَمَن يُشَاقِقِ الرَّسُولَ مِن بَعْدِ مَا تَبَيَّنَ لَهُ الْهُدَى
وَيَتَّبِعْ غَيْرَ سَبِيلِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ نُوَلِّهِ مَا تَوَلَّى وَنُصْلِهِ
جَهَنَّمَ وَسَاءتْ مَصِيرًا (4:115)

If anyone contends with the Messenger even after guidance has been plainly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than that becoming to men of Faith, We shall leave him in the path he has chosen, and land him in Hell,- what an evil refuge!

[An-Nisa:115]

closer to the grave

Alhamdulillah, I have been blessed to be given 26 years to live in this world.

Whenever I went to the ward, the average age of the patient would be around 75 years old. 26 years seems not a long period to me. I gained lots of reminder each time I met an elderly patient. Looking at their face and thinking of what sort of experience they have gained in the past, it helps me to re-orientate myself to the reality of this world.

Every time you reach an anniversary of your life, you are one step closer to the graveyard. It may seem far for now, yet sooner or later, you will meet the judgement day.

Sometimes, I'm a bit hesitant to celebrate my own birthday. Maybe unconsciously, I'm afraid that I will realise that all this while, I have been wasting my time. I hope that in the past 26 years, I have done enough good deeds and repent for all my sins to Allah and for any wrongdoings to any human being that I have met in the past. Insha-Allah, I will try my best to be a better person and controlling all my negative attitudes.

I'm grateful for all the birthday wishes that I received. I hope that everyone will remain steadfast in Islam. Happy Ramadan.

5th Anniversary

This blog as of today, will be 5 years old. A lot has happened in the past 5 years. Let me tell you a little bit about my blog.

This blog was started as a personal blog. A place for me to jot down all the ups and downs of my life as a medical student. The initial title of this blog was paradigmshift and the initial url was hafiz_238.blogspot.com. I chose paradigm shift to reflect my motivation to be a better person and to be brave to face all of the challenges in the future.

Later, I changed the blog title to 'kembara di bumi Melbourne'. I think I have to change the title of this blog at the end of this year since I won't be living at Melbourne. Not sure which title I should choose.

I used to be blogging frequently. However, in the last few years, especially when I started my clinical years, I haven't been able to blog as frequent as it used to be. Perhaps, life has been busy or I don't have any inspiration to put my mind into writing. Nevertheless, I hope that I would be able to maintain this blog for the next few years.

Pergi tak kembali

Al-fatihah to Ustaz Asri. Read more.

Gen Med

Tomorrow will be my third week of doing rotation in General Medicine. So far, alhamdulillah, it has been fulfilling. The consultant expects the medical student to participate in the ward round everyday and try to admit patient and presenting on the ward round. The ward round usually lasts between 4-5 hours everyday. It has been busy, but that will be my life starting from next year. So, I guess I shouldn't be the one complaining.

I usually arrived at the hospital around 8am and only came back to home around 10pm. I like to do my revision at hospital rather than studying at home since it can save me lots of electricity bills and prevent me from wasting my time doing unnecessary things.

There are lots of things that I need to revise for this semester. I am still trying to find time to revise my Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Paediatrics since those subjects will be part of my semester exam. Hopefully I can find time to blog and visit other blogs as much as possible in the next few months.

Ok, that's all for now.