Ramblings About My Life..

Prick Me, Prick You

Just had my ILA Small Group Work session this afternoon. It was a close call, really, as I had to rush my work for the group discussion last night because the learning objectives that were supposed to be posted on our webportal weren't up for the better part of the week. To be absolutely honest, it isn't as if I usually finish my work early anyway - although they had a lot more ground to cover this time, so I had to burn the midnight oil last night (fortified by a few mouthfuls of leftover shiraz and a few bites of Cadbury's chocolate) until I got my work done. However, upon reaching the lonely and windswept outpost that is known to us as St Thomas' Church this afternoon, my group discovered that our group's GP was absent! How can we hold a constructive, critical and medically-orientated discussion without THE MAIN MAN?!

We were pondering what to do next (to leave or to leave surreptiously via the toilet windows) when a guy walked over to our table, sat in the seat of honour usually reserved for our favourite GP and announced that he was in charge of our group today. I instantly decided that I liked his style. He just walked over, dropped a book and a piece of paper on the table, sat down in a seat that obviously screams RESERVED! and announced that he was in charge of our table - all without even so much as an introduction. Everyone sat rooted to the spot, transfixed by wonder. Who was this newcomer, who dared to usurp the throne of our GP? He hath not yet passeth the fury that is Group 1 - the group which can spend an hour prodding everything and yet nothing - how dare he calleth himself our Tutor?

Before anyone had enough time to pluck up enough courage to ask him who the heck he was, he picked up the piece of paper he brought with him and began running through the ILA Learning Objectives at hyperspeed. We then settled into a routine of flicking through the pages of our self-prepared notes while he began rattling off stuff in a near-continuous flow of medico-jargon. How different from how our ILAs used to be. We used to run through the objectives one by one, discussing them at length, and our GP would prompt us to contribute by saying "Let's see what so-and-so has to say about the etiology of so-and-so disease" or something to that effect. This led to plenty of participation from everyone. Now, we just sat, flicked through our notes and nodded every now and then while our temporary tutor charged through the ILA learning topics.

When he was finally done (I noticed that he did quite an impressive job of summarizing everything into a concise presentation and not miss even the smallest details), we began to ask questions. Whence did thou come, and from where? Turns out that he was a surgeon-in-training who was assigned to fill in the space of our tutor for today. He was supposed to take a teaching post for 6 months as part of his training. No wonder his command of the human anatomy was absolutely spot-on. Then, he took out the sharps' bin, overturned it, and shook it while medical thingamajigs fell out of the hole in the cover. The rest of us watched with mounting excitement, akin to watching someone open a Christmas present. Ooh, cannulas. And look, more cannulas! And syringes, and bottles of liquid, and alcohol swabs, and cotton balls!

After bombarding him with a few more questions about intermittent claudication, critical leg ischaemia, bypass surgery and the anatomy of the lower limb, we were more or less satisfied that we got a guy who knew his stuff. Then, out of the blue, he suddenly asked us if we wanted to draw blood from him. We were like, whaddafuk? since it is very foolhardy to ask a couple of first years who know nuts about medicine to insert a wickedly sharp object into your arm and assume that you'll still have an arm after we were done. Someone volunteered and with our new tutor showing the way, he managed to draw out a couple of ounces of blood. Everyone was enthusiastic about drawing blood after seeing him survive the procedure. However, he only had two arms - one can only prick a person's arm so many times.

He came up with a solution - we would draw blood from each other. Wicked. After showing us the basic procedure, we then proceeded to draw blood from each other. I suppose if a person from another table looked over, they would have thought that the whole of Group 1 became IV drug abusers. Everyone was holding syringes and stabbing it into each other's arm. After that, the person who got pricked would then proceed to draw blood from the person who pricked him/her. Drawing blood is harder than it seems. Stab in at too deep and angle and you pierce through the vein completely. Stab in too shallow, and you'll be quite likely to pull the needle out when pulling the plunger of the syringe to draw blood out. Some people managed to draw blood, whereas others just gave some individuals a nasty bruise. I managed to draw a small amount before the needle slipped out.

What great fun! I think I'm starting to like syringes now - all I can think of now are thoughts of sliding the needle into the vein, not too deep an angle, watching for the "backflash", easing it inside a little, pulling the plunger backwards while holding the syringe steady, press a cotton ball on the site of insertion and gently withdraw the needle out without any lateral movement of the syringe. Argh! I'm almost, read this - almost, but not quite tempted to buy a couple and practice on myself. Hahaha!

P.S. - The Christmas mood is in the air, and I think I'm infected with the Christmas spirit for the first time in my life - I feel like nicking the Christmas tree they place near the reception and placing it my room! Haha! Tomorrow, I'm going to watch some caroling tomorrow and the Christmas lights of Sheffield! Should be great fun!

P.P.S. - Just 10 more days, and I'll be leaving on a jet plane!

posted by yong chen @ 9:27 PM