18SX

Day 6 post-exam or I shall say day 6 post-General Surgery posting or day 6 post-7^th semester; any which you like. To sum up General Surgery I’d say it has been an awesome 7 weeks of posting.

The moment when you’ve stayed up all night studying everything related to your case presentation but when your specialist asked simple questions, you’re still unable to answer it.

The moment when the patients you’re assigned to and been followed up for weeks passed away and you ended up weeping along with the family members.

The moment when it’s no longer awkward to access patients’ abdomen, breast or per-rectal examination because you know how important early detection for cancer is.

The moment when you're kneeling down in front of a patient examining his scrotal swelling in front of 30 other students.

The moment when you can’t think straight because your favourite MO/HO is right next to you.

The moment when you’re still inexperience in venipuncture or what to do in an emergency case when patient needs to be resuscitated but ended up being a part of the rescue team because you’re there.

The moment when the class representative says ‘class in five minutes’ but you’re still having lunch.

The moment when you still need to come to the hospital on public holiday and be on standby for class that only started at 6pm and ended at nearly 8pm.

The moment when patients ask you can they be cured when you know they couldn’t because it’s stage 4 cancer with metastases.

The moment when it’s your patient who’s more positive than you do about life that you know it’s how HE constantly sends you messages and reminders.

I’ve learnt a lot during the posting. But I know even so, there are a lot of other things I can’t cover.

Mr.Ragu. The infamous Mr.Ragu whom everyone has been talking about. Turned out he's such a nice guy. A funny guy too. I'm serious. I'm looking forward to meet him during 6th year to see if he still remember me 'the fertilizer'. I can't believe of all incidences, that's what he decided to address me as.

It was during a case presentation when we discussed about what are the risk factors for breast cancer and the usual 'ritual' was he'll jump from one student to the next to ask questions. Came my turn and he asked

'why is estrogen so significant to the risk of breast cancer?'

 so I answered

'because estrogen is considered as the breast fertilizer so anything that increases one's exposure to estrogen is a factor'

Mind you. I was serious. I was not intended to make any joke. About estrogen being the breast fertilizer, that was Mr.Hamsan the specialist from Ampang Hospital told me when I attended his clinic.

The next thing, that's what he's been calling me. The Fertilizer. Nevertheless I'll always respond to him with a smile, one eyebrow raise and a 'Yo whats up Doc' look.

Talking about exam, just like the seniors said it’s 90% luck no matter how much you’ve studied. Anything could happen during the exam. We have 3 ultimate rules to pass the clinical exam;

1.      Easy straightforward cases

2.      Patients cooperating to the max

3.      Kindhearted examiners

And above all it’s all about how we rely on HIM. It’s all that matters.

So this is the end of semester 7. Done with Community Health and General Surgery. Coming up next are Medicine and Obstetric & Gynaecology. My group will start with Medicine and the other with O&G. Before that, let’s enjoy the 2 weeks holiday! :D

Us with Mr.Ragu

 Ps: It's no longer taboo to talk about breast, scrotum. Vagina? Wait until you do O&G.