Panic

I panic very easily. When I'm asked to do a job that I'm not very familiar with, I would start palpitating, going over instructions over and over and be slow and clumsy in what I do. In my first week, in an endocrine/surgical clinic, a doctor asked me to send a request card for MIBG in gamma camera and get a date for the scan- I was like ?!?!? and why did he send the other two students to take the history and I got picked for the job which I haven't got a clue about? And it must have been my unlucky day - the technician wouldn't accept the card because it wasn't clearly written enough and I spent some time arguing with him. He was mean... saying 'if you are confident that it's MIBG then write it down yourself and countersign it, or else I won't take it', and I had to bring the card back so the doctor can add the few letters into the card. It was for a patient with pheochromocytoma, and when I came back, the doctor talked about the condition. 'Pheochromocytoma is a catecholamine-secreting tumour, and catecholamine is hormones for fight-and-flight response, like just now when I asked you to send the request card the catecholamine level in your body must have shot up.' Nice one doctor, now I will remember what catecholamine is and what MIBG is for a long time.

Whenever a consultant talks to me, I get palpitation anyway. In the renal ward rounds last two months, whenever the consultant (particularly Janet) said something to me, I would jump. It's not just things like 'tell me about myeloma', but also simply stuff like 'tell me about his fluid balance' or 'fetch me his drug chart'. Sometimes I get surprises like 'why don't you type up the clinical notes' or 'order an ecg for this gentleman'. There I was, standing quietly behind the entourage of doctors hoping to be invisible, and statements like these made me feel extremely alarmed. I usually would simply go 'what? can you say that again?', hyperventilating. I recall her saying 'don't panic!' to me for quite a few times already. I don't know why I reacted like that. Maybe its just I have expected to play no role as a lowly student. However Janet was different in that she tried to include everyone and make me feel like part of the team. Anyway I spent most of my ward rounds being on my feet. I got used to it, and it became rather fun after a while.

Presenting history is often a horrible experience. We had a bedside teaching session with Prof Carlson last week and I presented a patient's history. It was my first time presenting in weeks. (My groupmates have managed to turn the clinical debrief meant for us to practise presenting history into spoonfeeding teaching session). I knew it wasn't the most coherant one I've presented, but the professor had just too much to critisised - in front of the patient and my groupmates. I usually take critism in a very positive way. But for the first time, I actually thought that was too much to take and I felt a little embarassed, holding my head down half the time.
'How did you know he had reflux? Did he used the word? What do you mean by bit of weight loss? How much is a bit? How can you tell if you don't ask? You must always ask about any complications with regards to previous surgeries. You can't just say all the symptoms in random orders.' etc etc
But it wasn't his fault. He must have been expecting more from a medical student 11th week into her clinical training. It was just me being stupid.

I do realised that consultants are not always there to bite. Most of them are amusing and have a bit of personality. The first thing surgical firm lead said to us at the introductory session was 'you all look like mugheads'... how eccentric was that? He has been really cool and I like him. And just last week a charming consultant told me 'your english is really good, if you haven't been telling me I would have thought that you were raised in England' Hahahahaaaa!!!!! Though thats not the first time I get compliment like this, I was still extremely overjoyed!

Finally, I am pleased to announce that I have been allocated an A&E SSC to do. (SSC = student selected component. 4 weeks clinical attachment of whatever speciality we want and we can put in 8 choices). I'm really looking forward to the attachment! It will no doubt bring up my catecholamine level but I think that will be what I want. Hope it'll be exciting!