4TheRcrd Mag.

I cannot believe that week one of my clerkship has already come to an end. My time has been evenly split between the clinic I work at and the only hospital serving the sunshine coast, St. Mary’s Hospital. Thursday was my longest day but it was also my most exciting day yet, I’ll explain why…

I was at the clinic that morning, and there were the usual cases of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, irregular moles, colds, colds, and colds or some sort of sinus problem. But every once in a while someone breaks the pattern. One patient came in because they had pinched off the tip of their index finger on a door. It must have been a hard slam, because the tip of their bone was visible, and what remained of their nail was barely hanging on (sorry if I grossed you out).

That same afternoon, I went to the hospital for my first Emergency shift (supervised, as I am an ‘MSI’- Medical Student Intern, or Medical Secret Intelligence if you prefer). My first impression of Emergency: it’s much more mellow than what you see on tv. My job for most of the night was interviewing people to get the whole story and relevant details regarding their medical complaint before the doctor on duty saw them. The cases at emergency were of course much more varied than what I was used to in the clinic. Acute back pain, swollen ankle, mysterious bug bite with possible bacterial infection, chest pain, shortness of breath…

At 10 pm, I realized that perhaps I was a little tired from having spent the whole day working, and was on my way out when one of the nurses informed me of a delivery going on in the maternity ward. I had to go watch, I just had to. You see, I spent 2 weeks last summer in a public hospital in Egypt watching deliveries, but I have nightmares sometimes from the scenes I had witnessed in that hospital- horrendous patient treatment and impatience are a bad combination especially when it comes to delivering babies.

In any case, I asked the physician in the maternity ward if I could watch, and he told me to change into scrubs and put on some gloves, that if I was to watch I might as well help! I did as ordered, and came back to the ward. Entering the room where the delivery was in progress was in itself healing. The atmosphere was wonderful; the lights were dimmed, the husband and another relative were on either side of the mom-to-be, supporting and comforting her. The doctor was standing at the side, calmly watching and gently encouraging the mom each time she pushed. As the baby’s head started appearing, my job was to place hot cloths on the area surrounding the head in order to help the muscles stretch without tearing. It took 2 hours for the baby (a girl!) to be born, and I got to help with delivering the placenta by gently tugging at the umbilical cord. I got home at around 1 am that night, exhausted but relieved that I got to see that happy deliveries are indeed possible.

I’m excited and a little anxious to find out what the next 3 weeks have in store….

IMAGE CREDIT: here.