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| Saturday, January 06, 2007 |
| So |
It's 2007.
*cue noisemakers*
whoopedoo.
Well I've begun my family medicine rotation, and frankly, the pace is waaaaaaaay slower than internal medicine was. For the uninitiated, the main difference is that in internal, I spent my time on the wards and in family, it's basically a "klinik Wong dan rakan pokok gembira sekalian" sort of thing.
Except that they don't exclusively deal with sore throat and fever and MC selling while forcing you to buy vitamin C, panadol and needless broad-spectrum antibiotics.
Time for uncle WeiJin to regale you with his latest witty medical anecdotes!
I've mentioned on many previous occasions that Canadians are shameless. Another example cropped up today while I was in the EKG clinic.
There I was, just pulling EKG leads off yet another obese caucasian, when a new requisition was handed to me for yet another EKG. I recognized the name. She was a classmate of mine (and still is, however, due to rules of the english language, reference to her has to be made in the past tense given that this vignette occured in the past, and not to be confused with her being a classmate of mine in the past which was the present and the present the future at that time, though in the future, she will be a classmate of mine in the past but since that future is not present, therefore presently, she remains a very present classmate. Though we refer to her in the past).
Apparently she was having palpitations recently and decided she needed an EKG. Fair enough. For privacy purposes she shall henceforth be known as !@#$.
An EKG requires the patient to expose the entire chest, and the examiner has to move a woman's breast out of the way to achieve an appropriate reading.
Therefore clinic policy is that if you know the patient, you don't do the procedure. For obvious reasons. So just as I was about to hand off the requisition to one of my colleagues, I heard someone call my name.
"Wei Jin!"
"Oh hi !@#$!"
"Are you on your family medicine rotation?"
"yeah, just helping out in the EKG clinic today"
"cool! do you want to give me my EKG? I don't mind"
"uh..."
I look nervously around for Shirley, the head tech. She's an old-school headmistress type stickler for rules and I expected her to lay down her well-rehearsed "clinic policy says that..." speech.
I catch Shirley's eye and she looks at me over the top of her half-moon spectacles, shrugs and says, very sternly, "If she doesn't mind, go do the EKG"
I open my mouth to protest but Shirley points firmly to the EKG room. It's a familiar gesture that no one in the office argues with. She da boss, and she know it. Word.
This was a classmate of mine who has, on occasion, given me rides back from class.
It was by far THE MOST AWKWARDESTSEST EKG I have ever performed. So awkward that merely "most awkward" and even grammatically hellish "most awkwardest" isn't enough. 70 year old ladies with furniture syndrome I can handle (that's when the chest reaches the drawers). This, though...
Most awkwardestsest indeed.
How do you keep a poker face, focus on your classmate's chest, move her breast around to apply EKG leads while her nipples are perkily pointing at you like daffodils in summer sunshine; and she's joking and laughing about class and exams like we're having a cup of coffee?
A cup of coffee fully clothed, that is. As in, we're fully clothed. Not the cup of coffee. Cups and coffee don't need clothes. Cause coffee stains are difficult to wash off.
...
oh nevermind.
But what expression do you express? Do you laugh along with her while dotting silicone gel on her left breast? Comment on the weather and daffodils in summer sunshine while counting her intercostal spaces? How hard do you prod for said intercostals? How far away from the parasternal border should you go? Do you smile to diffuse the weird awkwardnessess of the situation? Or do you not smile for fear of looking like a perv?
And was I standing next to the heater? Cause my face felt really warm...
Friggin' no shame right these orang putih.
Later that day I spent 20 minutes burning warts off a guy's foot with liquid nitrogen. It was strangely satisfying.
pphhffffssshhtttttttttt |
posted by theycallmecruel @ 1:50 PM  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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hey weijin... dun forget leh.. "professional" ar.... :P it's all in the mindset weijin... LOL...
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hey weijin... dun forget leh.. "professional" ar.... :P it's all in the mindset weijin... LOL...