First Death

For the first time since I've stepped into clinical school, a patient under the care of my team died.

It occured rather suddenly. Post-surgery (biopsy of the bladder via cystoscopy), the patient suffered from continuous bleeding with a few episodes of blood clot obstructing the urinary catheter. Despite it all, the patient remain a cheerful, albeit mostly in pain.

I had the honor of chatting with the patient 3 days post-op. Did a general history taking and a heart examination - found some weird heartbeats that I thought was due to the patient's previous heart surgery. Left it at that, and came over to visit the patient once in a while for the next few days to see if the patient was recovering. The patient was bleeding a lot less as the days went by, and all of us thought we could discharge the patient soon.

Suddenly, on Thursday morning, the patient had an episode of myocardial infarct (heart attack). Code Blue (medical emergency) was sounded, doctors and nurses ran around, and the patient later recovered. The patient was still weak after that episode (many other patients and visitor commented that to me when I returned to check on him), and in the afternoon had episodes of shakes and fever. The intern in charge thought it was due to sepsis (infection), and gave treated accordingly. I was there, wishing a swift recovery and praying.

The next time I saw the patient was in the ICU, proclaimed dead.

Apparently, an hour after we left, the patient had another episode of MI. Even with the attempts of resuscitation and all the wonder of medical technology, the patient suffered multiple organ failure and passed away.

Even now, I still wonder if this could all be prevented. Should I have told the intern about the weird heart sounds earlier? Was the fatigue, tremor and fever a sign of the impending MI?

The irony of this all was the fact that the patient told me that his father died of MI at a very young age, and the only reason the patient was still alive despite many MIs were due to the 'wonders' of medical science.

Hhmph. We are so proud of our immortality, yet our very life is but for the grace of God.

"What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?" Psalms 89:48

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When they said that the patients are going to be our teachers, they weren't kidding!

Current music: Main theme of FF7
Current mood: ~chim, chim, growl, hungry~

Makai Senki Disgaea

Ah, Disgaea. What can I write about this anime...



What is it about?
Flonne, an angel apprentice from Heaven, was sent to the Demon World to assasinate its Overlord, King Krichevskoy. When she first arrived, the first thing she saw was a burning castle.

After wandering around the Demon World for two years (seriously?), she came across the demon graveyard. Thinking that she had finally reached the Overlord's castle, she ran in - only to fall through the unstable floor, uncovering a buried coffin. Making a big ruckus trying to open the coffin, she ends up awakening Laharl who was sleeping (also for two years?) in that said coffin. After finding out that King Krichevskoy died two years ago from chocking on a dark manjuu (rice flour buns stuffed with bean paste or meat) from a piece of paper that coincidentally flew into the building from outside - and Laharl's lack of sorrow from that news (in fact, he was too busy laughing) - Flonne is determined to follow Laharl to see if love do exist in the hearts of demons. Thus began Laharl's journey to regain the title of Overlord of the Demon World.

Are you serious?
What, you think I can make up sure a corny storyline?

Should I watch this anime?
Why not, if you like watching an overpowered good(? but he's a demon) guy attempting to bulldoze his way back to his castle, only to be halted by servants on strike, a love maniac trying to teach him love, a demon vassal trying to stab him in the back, human heroes getting into his way etc. It's based on a PS2 game, so it might be slightly confusing for you people who have never played the game before. That said, I really enjoyed the last episode - finally Laharl gets the break he deserves...

What can I learn from watching this series?
Umm love is good? Or as according to the local love-maniac, "you must study about love so that you don't become an evil demon overlord." Keh, actually I prefer to become an evil demon overlord...

Now for those who played the game - this is something from the second game! I can't wait for it to come out in English!

Finding Neverland

Just finished watching 'Finding Neverland'. Quite an amusing show, about how a play-writer finds his inspiration to write the play 'Peter Pan' by interacting with a widow and her 4 sons. In the meanwhile, he also has to deal with other things like upset wife (for spending more time with that family than with her), community politics (stiff upper class British people...) and trying to entertain a group of professionals with a fairytale play. A interesting watch.

One comment - Johnny Depp can actually act as a normal character! As normal as he can be anyway, as an eccentric play-writer with an overactive imagination.

For those who don't recall, Johnny Depp is the actor for 'Jack Sparrow' in Pirates of the Carribean and 'Mr Willy Wonka' in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Not too sure if he acted in any other shows but he probably did. Anyway, to the extend of my knowledge (until today's show), he acts weird.

As Jack Sparrow, well- it's so- gay. No offence, but seriously. Especially when he just stands there, swaying a bit with his hands waving around - so, 'girly'.
And as Mr Willy Wonka... well, let's just say that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of the few shows that mentally scarred me for life. Dancing oompa-loompas, who are actually miniaturized plump old men...

In this show, however when I saw his name in the intro I nearly stopped the show he actually acted decent. Phew.

On another note, I put clothes into the washing machine, and it spat out a 10 cent coin. Shiny...

Current Mood: oooooo
Current Music: MATERIALIZE (Mai Otome)

Wish upon a falling star - and run away when the building in front catches fire

This book was released in March this year. I managed to steal bash the shopkeeper and ran away legally acquire this book (it's free cause it's only a sample) and had a flip through at home.

For those of you who have no idea what type of book this is - it's the Bible with aids, notes and pictures to help people understand in more detail what the text is trying to convey.

Well, this is the first time I saw one that talks about archaeology (most are like 'Study Bible for teenagers' or 'Study Bible for the married couple'). And I must say, after reading through the sample (which covers Genesis 1:1 to 18:5), that I think it's pretty well done.

In the first few chapter of Genesis (regarding the creation of the world and mankind), they actually compared the creation in the Bible with the creation mythos of the other civilizations at the time, for example the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians and the Greeks. It was done with the intend to first describe the culture and beliefs of the people around the author, and second to prove that the Bible is not a mismatch of mythological stories, but has its grounding on real historical events.

It later goes on to other events in Genesis such as the Flood (which interestingly enough also pops out in other mythologies), the building of the Tower of Babel (which may be architecturally similar to the ziggurats of the Mesopotamians) and Abram's migration. Also in between the paged there are notes regarding the writing forms at that period (including the discovery of a cuneiform shopping list! 8D) and possible locations of the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark.

Now, all I can say (assuming the rest of the study Bible is as interesting as this chapter) is that this Bible is a must-get (or at least probably looks good on the shelf) for lovers of mythologies and archaeology.

Get the hint, dad?

Remembering the days gone by...

Just finished watching 'Awakening' acted by Robbie Williams. Actually, I've watched this show before but totally forgotten about it until I saw the ward in the hospital. Which goes to show that there are some differences between wards (despite all of them being white and rather dull).

What to write about this show... well, I'm really impressed by Dr. Malcolm Sayers (Robbie William). Despite not having any clinical experience (medical school does NOT count, trust me), he really tried his best working with patients. Even though most of them are ga-ga. It's very easy to just dismiss those patients thinking that they're not even alive and just treat them badly, as portrayed by some of the nurses and doctors. Though I don't blame them, it's probably very draining working in places like those.

However, what I like most about Dr. Sayers (or in real life, Dr. Oliver Sacks) is that despite the stress of working in a new environment, he still was very observant. What struck me the most during the show wasn't how 'doctorly' (ability to figure out diagnosis, give treatment and out they go) he was, but how by using basic skills like observation and analyzing, he sortof tried to find ways to help those comatosed patients. Maybe they sound the same to you so I'll try to put it in another way. Considering what I've been seeing at the GPs, patients come in with some problems; it looks like something you've seen before so very quickly you diagnose it, give them medications and management options, and out they go. No offense, but after a while, I get a feeling that I can train a chimpanzee to do that (no offense to the chimpanzee). But trying to see things in a different perspective, against the views of your colleague and doing your best to help those whom modern medicine have no answers for, that's tough.

And it reminds me of why I wanted to do medicine in the first place.

It's not to be the top scorer (though that would be nice). It's not to get straight A1s (though I won't mind getting one soon...). It's not even to get out and work as a GP/physician, earning enough money to survive and have a good life.

It's to learn the skills needed so that once I'm out there, I could find out what the people need (especially concerning psychology and neuro stuff) and to do research so that other doctors can do the grunt work of talking with patients and giving them the medications.
Now that I think about it, sometimes I wished I had taken pure science first before doing medicine. Doesn't matter, I can always do self-learning.

Where is all this coming from? Well, recently I've been feeling rather bored. Exams coming in less than a month, all I have to do is to start studying, do well in exams, then go home.

But, when I think about it, is that what I want to take out of medicine? Just good marks? Just to know all I need for exams, pass the exams and then wait to leave medical school? Not that studying for exams is bad, but even though it should be priority now, I shouldn't forget what exactly I wanted out of medicine.

After all, like what my father said - all I need to do to finish medical school is to pass the exams right? 50%. That's all I need. So why am I here?

Just an interesting trivia, movies like 'Awakening' and 'A Beautiful Mind' were one of the reasons why I choose to do medicine in the end, instead of pure science.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Ensei no Shizukesa (Mai Hime)

Anzac Day

It's Anzac day today - a holiday one day after uni started... wished Monday was a holiday too...

Details on what Anzac Day is all about for those who are interested:

The ANZAC tradition began during World War I with a landing on 25th April, 1915 at Gallipoli on the Turkish Aegean coast. Because of a navigational error, the ANZACs came ashore about a mile north of the intended landing point. Instead of facing the expected beach and gentle slope they found themselves at the bottom of steep cliffs, offering the few Turkish defenders an ideal defensive position. Establishing a foothold, the Anzacs found an advance to be impossible. After eight months of stalemate, the Allies withdrew, leaving 10,000 dead amongst the Anzacs.

Although numerically the ANZAC were a minority of the half-million Allied men who served at Gallipoli, the troops from the two young nations were often at the vanguard and became renowned for their doggedness despite what the British regarded as a lack of discipline. A full 10% of the New Zealand population (then just under 1 million) served overseas during World War I, and New Zealand had the highest casualty and death rate per capita of any country involved in the war. Australia had the highest casualty rate of any military involved in the war.
Taken from Wikipedia
Now we know why all the shops are closed today... (they got lost on the way?)

On another note - been feeling rather bored/weird recently. Ran out of anime to watch (unless I want to watch those eerie/psychological animes I have left...), can't read novels for fear of getting too addicted to study, and can't study because since when was studying any interesting (how interesting is it to know the causes of pneumonia and flu?).

AAarrggghhh! What to do? What to do?