i’m once more drawing close to the end of another year of medical school…

let’s review the changes that have taken place this year…

with regards to medical school:
i’ve learnt quite a lot this year and progressed a mite further towards becoming a doctor, yet i still feel extremely inadequate most times, and definitely not confident of many things. i’ve come to realise that there’re so many things that are not covered at all in the textbooks. the textbooks are training us to be diagnostic-investigative-management doctors, but mostly, what we’re going to do once we graduate are to be administrators, planners, procedure-doers and mainly, expected to do a whole lot of things we weren’t taught in med school. i really hope the SIP talks and attachment itself will be useful. *gulps*

i was reading a year two.5’s blog about e-clinics, where she mentioned seeing a biopsy of a breast carcinoma… of her feelings and such, and i remembered being present at a similar incident during my e-clinics too, and feeling just like she did. but now, even if i were seeing a peritoneal tap done for someone with liver cancer, or perhaps a biopsy of a lymph node for suspected CA… the feeling is just different. it’s more of a grim acceptance of how life is just so cruel to some, and how cancer is just so common. it’s like i’ve just stopped feeling sorry for people. i guess that helps towards keeping me objective when it comes to managing the patient, but i can’t help feeling a draught of chill sweeping thru me.

with regards to patients:
had an episode of vertiginous giddiness on thursday. it was pretty mild, not accompanied by tinnitus, otalgia or nystagmus, just some nausea. but it was a really uncomfortable feeling. and i felt super irritable when being tested for nystagmus by my pals. and also being asked other questions or having my hearing tested. so now, i know very well how a patient who definitely felt worse than me that day, would feel when he/she is examined by up to THREE medical students, each of whom do the exact same thing… have to give them credit for their inmeasurable tolerance in the face of bumbling medical students…

i’m really very grateful to all these patient patients (pun intended) out there who put up with all this discomfort so that we can learn something from them! it’s good for medical personnel to fall ill once in a while and at least experience one hospital admission to have an idea of how patients feel in the hospital.

with regards to friends:
i’ve spent yet another year strengthening friendship bonds with some friends, notably those from my previous schools. i don’t think i’m a very sociable person, as can be seen from the fact that i don’t know that many people in medicine. i think i need to just open up and go with the flow more… probably be less blur and try to remember more faces and names. :(

i’m still mortally afraid and worried of being let down by friends whom i think could be lifelong bosom friends, friends that i would TRUST with almost anything… as the saying goes, ‘once bitten twice shy’. but of course, i’m not going to get all cynical and migrate up bt timah hill to become a recluse hah hah. (if i don’t talk to someone, of even myself for just ONE day, i’ll go bonkers).

anyway, still on the lookout for more 知心朋友…

with regards to character:
by now, i do know my own character better. or at least, i’m grateful i have a few friends who can tell me to the face…. things like:
- ‘ya, you’re a hard person to work with’
- ‘you worry too much’
- ‘why are you so perfectionistic, it’s stressful working with you’
- ‘omg, you’re so untidy! and you’re a gal!’
and i do know that i am inflexible, intolerant, irritable, defensive (at times), critical, mean and ok, a lot of things…

aiyo. i think i’m a really bad person. so paiseh.

*shudders* what a monster i’ve turned out to be!

with regards to family:
hmmm well i think there’s been quite a shift in family dynamics lately. i’ll have to step into my mother’s shoes soon while she takes over my dad’s, at least temporarily. my brother’s growing up and showing some criminalistic tendencies (heh.) and i’ll need to keep a close watch but slack rope control over him, lest he should rebel. haha… so my mum plays the bad cop role and i’m like the good cop… haha… boy am i in a hurry to grow up.

oh boy, how things have changed… but i hope it’s all for the better.