and the "real" clerkship begins

"Real" because although I have been a clinical clerk at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) since classes started last June, I haven't rotated in a big department yet and although my rotation with the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) lasted for four weeks, the ER duties with them was just for 10 hours (talk about benign) and only for four times in one week (for a total of 40 hours which is even less than just two duties in the other departments where duties last for at least 24 hours and the two-week rotations meant going on duty for three to four times in two weeks). Anyway, tomorrow, at 7am, my rotation at the Department of Pediatrics will begin. The pedia rotation is comprised of two weeks at the pedia wards, one week at the pedia ER, and one week at the neonatal ICU (although we would be "catchers" at the OB delivery room). I will be rotating first at the wards, followed by the PER and then the NICU.

And I'm scared shit. I have to admit that I'm not that confident with my skill of inserting IV lines and inserting IV lines in children is like hell because well, they're kids and they usually cry at the first sight of someone in white (can't blame them; it's like they've been conditioned to associate white-clothed people with needles) and since they're kids, they have small blood vessels which make it even more difficult to line them. But what I'm dreading more is their parents. Hopefully, the parents of my patients are going to be cooperative and kind. I'm also scared that I might get out of this rotation hating kids. I don't want that to happen because I really love kids. I'm not sure if I actually like pediatrics but at least I like children and I don't want to be a mean monster to them innocent angels.

But before I begin my adventure in pedia, I would just like to write down a few thoughts on my just concluded rotation with DFCM:

• I really doubt that I would want to go into family medicine. The history taking is sooo tiring. So many questions to ask! At the ambu one morning, the patient said to me: " Ang dami namang tanong, lahat ba yan kailangan itanong?" ("You have so many questions, do you really need to ask all of those?"). I was already tired and hungry and the patient could barely speak and understand Tagalog and using English didn't seem like an option. In short, I was already very frustrated and I was so tempted to tell her "Kung pagod ka na, pa'no pa kaya ako? Ilang pasyente na ang tiningnan ko at maaga pa. Di ka nag-iisa, naiinis din ako sa dami ng mga tanong."
• I actually appreciated my two-week rotation at the hospice and palliative medicine. However, I don't want to be the one doing all that interviewing in the future. So yeah, another reason why I wouldn't go into fammed. However, I do hope that more physicians would acknowledge the existence of palliative medicine because patients and their patients would highly appreciate it. I know I would.
• A lot of realizations from community medicine, although again, I doubt that I would want to go into comm med. However, I'm more sure than ever that I want to go to non-clinical medicine and I'm not so sure anymore if I still want to go into clinical medicine.
• I realized that although I missed patient interaction during my pathology elective last summer, I don't like talking with patients for a long time. Also, I want minimal involvement with their families and sooo...
• As much as possible, I don't want to deal with chronically-ill patients, unless the intervention needed is surgical.

The rest of August was fun as we celebrated our annual Mu Week and the 100% passing rate of my Mu family (and my school) gave us one more reason to celebrate. The week after Mu Week, the Medical Students Society (MSS) held the annual FATE. This year's theme was Fusion at the East where the Mu Band 2011 performed the following:

Mu Band - Rude Boy (Mu Band Mix) @ FATE 2011 from Lee Capili on Vimeo.

Mu Band - Rude Boy (Mu Band Mix) @ FATE 2011 from Lee Capili on Vimeo.

These made them the winner of this year's battle of the bands despite the really sucky sound system and the numerous technical glitches. And they made a (home) recording of the Adele x AC/DC mash-up, a proof that they really deserved to be the winner this year.

August has generally been good to me and September began with a good start. I found out last Friday from Via (thank you batchmate! ILY ABL!) that my article in the September issue of the H&L magazine has been mentioned by Dr. Rafael Castillo in his Philippine Daily Inquirer column. And I thought my article sucked. I really had a hard time writing that article because I couldn't focus. However, the afternoon that I spent alone in some coffee shop in Manila while it was raining cats and dogs, risking to be trapped and not be able to go home was well worth it. I am also very thankful to my sis, Dr. Stella Manalo for letting me interview her with this because I really learned a lot from her. Also thanks to my sis Jan Quijano for believing in my writing capabilities and for editing my work. Hmmm, I guess I could still make a career out of writing and fortunately, medical school hasn't killed the writer in me yet (haha!).

Since it has already been mentioned in a newspaper column, I will now shamelessly plug (this is my blog, after all) that my sisses and I from the Mu Sigma Phi Sorority have once again been invited to be guest writers for the H&L Magazine and its September issue (don't know yet if it's already out) features articles by us--medical students and doctors alike. And yes, we medical students and doctors do a multitude of other things aside from see patients. 

From Monica's cam (because mine ran out of batt) by the studio photographer (who didn't know how to use a non-SLR digi cam haha!)

In about 13 hours, my pedia rotation will start. I hope that rest of September would be as kind as August was to me. I hope that I don't turn into monster. And I hope that I would still love kids by October.