To View A Man In His World.

5 weeks have passed, CSFC is coming to an end, CG's will change, but most of all, VIETNAM, here we come! As usual, I've been...lazy to blog. Life has been interesting, clinics intriguing, patients...well...there are both extremes.

Take today for example, we thought to go to school early to do some clerking, since we'd been pretty slack the entire week. Veni, vidi, vici, it wasn't. Everyone we went to either wasnt there, didnt want to talk to us, was having breakfast, had relatives with them, you get my drift. All that = we couldn't take their history or perform a physical exam. So we finally got one patient who was nice enough to talk to us, though he did have this look on his face, which suggested the regret he felt for not being blunt enough to turn us down. We sure didn't expect what was coming. We'd thought we got our history-taking act together so we were fairly confident, but this patient was a reminder that we're still 5 clinic-week old students, with immense gaps in our knowledge, and basically, babies in need of guidance, apprentices in training.

His history was so complex and convoluted, we lost track of the structure we usually had, got thrown off track several times, only to bounce back and beyond. And at the end of it all, it was all a blur. His is certainly a story worth mentioning, what with diabetes, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, gout, nephrotic syndrome, arthritis, hypercholesterolaemia, etc etc. His physical exam ( we did a cardiac exam ) revealed few signs. That really didnt help. And we walked away from the patient, feeling worse than when we began. It wasn't a very encouraging start for the day, especially since we thought we'd be enthu today.

So on we went to look for more patients, received a few more rejections along the way, fraying my patience even more. And my temper flared up at the worst possible moment, why it was the worst moment...you'll soon find out. We went to check out a patient with cvs signs, maybe listen to a murmur, and when we got there, she wasnt in bed. And her name was off the board, so maybe she was discharged. I was totally put off by everything by then, and displayed my anger to my two companions, for which, I apologize. We didnt even have her name, but decided to ask the counter if she'd been transferred to a different ward. We found out she'd passed away this morning. My anger immediately dissipated, and I thought, shit, what the hell was i thinking? How could I've been so self-centred? And I silently berated myself, for being angry, concerned only with being able to learn, and forgetting that we're there to care first, even if we havent learned how to, in a sense.

I'm not sure if I could call that my first brush with death in the hospital. That lady wasn't someone I knew, not someone I'd spoken to, or even seen before. I wasn't emotionally attached to her, I wasn't involved with her treatment and management, I'd never had any form of contact with her before. She was just a number to me, just another case to learn from, I'd forgotten that these people can pass on from their ailments. And I hated myself for it. For allowing myself to think that way, it's only been 5 weeks. We have to remember what we're there for, forget all the challenges we face, our trials and tribulations, our hurdles, and remember all the trials our patients go through, because its their lives that we're dealing with. Sure, our lives are intertwined with their own, in some ways, and it's so easy to fall into a world filled with our own concerns and issues, but we're there, for them. And I pray that God will never let me forget that. To never forget compassion, empathy, to always possess a will to do the best I can.