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Sunday 31 August 2008

SUR2: wakey wakey

And there goes the second week of my 4th year. Time does pass really fast when you have something on all the time =/

Anaesthesia week's over, but i can't say it's been a really productive week. I had been scheduled to shadow a different anaesthetist for each morning, and other than that there's nothing on. Thing is, out of the 3 days, i had missed 3 surgeries due to cancellations or because the previous surgery took too long. I know, i should have been super enthu and stayed there for the rest of the days. Haha but i have better things to do.. like clerking patients for the next day. Which i didn't really manage to do anyway. Sigh.

But i did learn something though. And that is the misconception that anaesthetists do not need any communication skills because their patients are always asleep anyway. Haha i don't know who came up with that. I had actually thought so too, until now. On the contrary, an anesthetist has to have damn good communication skills. Bloody damn good. Damn.

So what does an anaesthetist do?
He has to visit the patient the day before the surgery to assess the patient's fitness.
He has to visit him again in the morning to reassure and relieve his anxiety.
He has to make him sleep with his lame jokes in the anaesthesia room (just before going into theatre).
And after the surgery, he has to wake him up and assess his condition.

If you notice it, the patient never get to see the surgeon at all, but he sees the anaesthetist all the time.

The surgeon sorta wait in his room for the patient to be wheeled into the theatre, go and do his stuff, and ciao from the theatre to drink coffee leaving the anaesthetist to 'wakey wakey' the patient. In a way, a surgeon seems so cool. Haha.

To be fair, an anesthetist get to drink coffee during the surgery :P.

So what do i think of becoming an anaesthetist now, given that my communication skills is non-existent? Strangely, i just can't wait to be one right now. Heck, i even look through the whole 7 years postgraduate course in anaesthesia. 7 years. Bloody hell i still have to study that long?

By the time i really get the chance to 'wakey wakey' a patient, i would be 32 years old.

That's a really long time just to learn how to make people sleep.. or maybe i can just skip all that and have a crash course in Lame Jokes 101 from a certain 'leng zhai' in Calgary. Haha :P

ps - there, i blogged about a 'leng zhai'. Happy? Haha.

pps - apparently the doctor cum lecturers here like to ask 'Happy?' during their teachings ..

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And a happy Merdeka, Malaysia! the land where my blood spill (:

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