Sunday, May 20, 2007

Our clinical session last Monday was mostly review and our tutorial session was focusing on the lower back and knee examination. Nick and I went to the hospital early so we could drop by the Drug and Alcohol Center and talk to some patients. We ended up talking to a man who was an alcoholic. He was pretty rough around the edges, but he was interesting to talk to and liked to tell us stories. I think if we were actually working (and had other patients waiting) we would have had to cut him off. He’d been in and out of jail several times and the last time was for ‘assault causing bodily harm’. I’ll have to tell you the story another time…

In between our clinical sessions, a few of us decided to go to the neonatal and postnatal wards. A really nice resident took us around with her and we got to see lots of little babies! We even got to help her do a blue book baby check on a little boy who was only 22 hours old. The mom had been in labour for almost 2 days before they decided to do a c-section- so needless to say, she wasn’t in the best of moods. Poor lady. We also talked to one patient who was 36 weeks pregnant with twins. Her tummy was massively huge.

The rest of my week was pretty uneventful. We had our first real cadaver lab and got to look at some shoulder and hip joints and some limbs. I can’t believe how heavy a human leg is!!! I did a cadaver lab at McGill, but we never did any limb anatomy, so it is kind of interesting to do it now.

I also went swimming on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons this week. On Tuesday I went with Bryan and Thursday I went by myself (which was actually really nice). I had my own lane in a 50m outdoor pool… the sun was shining and it was warm outside! That just wouldn’t happen at home.

My Friday was ridiculously long. I had class starting at 10am and didn’t get out until 7pm. We were supposed to have lectures all the way through, but I was sitting beside Sadiq in one of the lectures and we got really bored, so we decided to go to Royal Prince Alfred hospital (a nice and HUGE hospital beside campus) for their Grand Rounds. We got a nice lunch supplied by medical insurance companies and then went to the Rounds. (In case some of you don’t know what Grand Rounds are- A doctor at the hospital usually presents an unusual case or situation, a rare disease… etc. and a bunch of doctors (and students, I guess!) show up, listen and ask questions.) The first lecture was about a recent outbreak of an antibiotic resistant bacteria in the hospital. The next was about a 29 year-old male who got electrocuted and when he was brought in to emergency, the doctors ended up finding a bigger problem (an aortic coarctation) … it was very “House” like. Also, the whole thing was kind of neat because doctors’ pagers kept going off and they’d be running in and out of the room the whole time.

After class ended at 7pm, a big group of us went to a nice little Italian place (called Rosalina’a) for dinner. I had my favourite… gnocchi… and Sadiq brought wine for everyone. When dinner was done everyone split up and I ended up going to Len’s house with a bunch of the girls to play “cranium”- which I had never played before. (What a crazy Friday night, eh??) The game was kinda weird because it was the Australian version, and none of the North Americans knew any of the songs or people in the game. I felt pretty useless!

I’ve had a pretty dull weekend because most people have started to study A LOT. Our problem of the week is a broken neck of the femur (in an elderly woman) caused by osteoporosis. More limb anatomy …! You wouldn’t believe how much there is to learn.

It is also starting to get a bit cooler here now :(. I don’t leave my window open very much anymore and I actually sleep with blankets on at night. It’s been getting down to about 14 degrees Celsius at night, but still goes up to the mid-20’s during the day. The leaves have started to fall off the trees- which also feels pretty strange since it is still pretty warm out… but apparently winter is coming. He he he.

Anyway, if anyone is wondering, it’s only 34 days till I come home (not that I’m counting…)

Miss you! xoxo