KKB Rotation Posting

Assalammualaikum.

All semester 3 IMU medical students will have to go for a 3 day rotation posting in either KKB Hospital or Gombak Hospital. This semester, I was assigned to the KKB Hospital which means, I'll be going to Gombak next semester.

 Us in the bus befor the journey. Photo credited to Tay Yao Zong.

As our rotation started on Monday, the bus took us from IMU on Sunday to KKB. There were 12 girls staying in the nurse hostel while some other girls opted to stay in the IMU-rented houses in one of the housing areas in KKB. All the boys were required to stay in the rented-houses. Of the 12 girls staying in the nurse hostel, 8 were in first floor and 4 were in the 2nd floor. And I was one of the 8. We stayed in a dorm of 4 double-deckers.

When we first came in, the dorm was very sticky, and dusty. At first we used our sandals in the dorm but after some sweepings and moppings by us, we decided to enforce the law of "no sandals allowed in the room". =p

Day 1 (Sunday)

We walked to the nearest town for more than 30minutes!

And we met the boys, who had been walking for more than 30mins too from their houses.

We ate in one of the (maybe the only) kedai mamak there and started walking back to the hospital at 8+pm.

 While walking to the mamak. All of us are actually tired.

By then, it was very dark and all 11 of us (1 reached later) walked in a group, using the main, long-stretched road. We weren't really sure of the shortcuts (though Tasha asked one of the people there) and decided not to take the risk as none of us took the shortcut before and the road was very dark wout the road lamps and none of us know self-defense.

Thank God, we arrived the hostel safely, sweating and metabolised at least half of what we ate in the mamak.

At night, we started packing our things, cleaning the room and then started to chit chat, creating friendships. We slept very late that night, chit chatting the whole night and playing game cards. Ravini brought her UNO card which she left some of it at home. Hahah... I learnt a lot of new card games that night.

 

Day 2 (Monday)

Class started at 9am.

We went for breakfast at the hospital canteen before the class and met the boys there, who came by the bus IMU provided.

Some of us were late for the briefing, and I was the first of the latecomers to go into the briefing room. I was shocked and intimidated to see that I was "welcomed" by a super fierce looking thin lady. She stared at me like I've just killed a patient and quickly ran towards the back of the room finding empty chairs.

She took attendance, she gave some brief briefing and then stopped when Dr Lim came in. My, Dr Lim was like the total opposite of her. Dr Lim told us what we were supposed to do for the coming 3 days, she told us about the nearest waterfall and she said we can go there "after work" at 4pm.

Camwhoring in front of the ward =p

During the first half of the day, we were supposed to clerk the patients i.e take their history and do physical examination on them. We were divided into groups of 3 and each group will have their own patient. Unfortunately, as soon as we reached the ward, most of our patients have been discharged (good for them, bad for us). 

In the second half of the day, there was bedside teaching. Since none of us have a case related to the systems we studied, Dr Sevu decided to discuss one of the emergency case that morning. I almost feel like we're in one of House episode although Dr Sevu was nothing like House, he's more humane.

In the evening, most of my dormmates went out for dinner while me, August and Tasha stayed in the dorm. That night, we continued our card games till almost 1 am. I did not study at all during the 3 nights there. In fact, I dont think any of us managed to study although some did hold the notes, trying to read them.

Day 3 (Tuesday)

We repeated the same cycle we did yesterday but fortunately, my group's patient wasn't discharged so we managed to get history and do physical examination on her. 

And yes, Dr Lim grew fond of our group (haha...she said our group is very enthusiastic). She invited us for dinner that night. Initially we planned to go to the waterfall since we'll be leaving KKB early tomorrow evening but it was raining awfully heavy and there goes our waterfall trip, bye bye....

We ate in one of the chinese restaurants, me and Tasha walked to the mamak to buy our own food to eat with the rest of the group. 

After the splendid and enjoyable dinner, Dr Lim treated us all ice creams!

So nice of her. We walked to the ice cream shop and had our own choice of ice cream flavour.

I'm pretty sure the owner of the shop slept extraordinarily happy that night, heh... 30 students come out of the blue, asking for ice creams... 

Crazy-ing at the roadside walking for ice crea

Line up! 1, 2, 3

THANK YOU DOCTOR LIM!

=)

That night also, while in the dorm, we created a new game; called KKB Medical Game.

=.="

Day 4 (Wednesday)

Again, we went to the wards during the first half of the day.

After lunch, we had case discussion with Dr Lim in the dining hall of the nurse's hostel.

All of us were happy and excited to go back home but, there was one slight problem; misunderstandings.

It took us a great deal of effort to actually understand the schedule of buses that were supposed to drive us back to IMU. 

We were told that the bus will be fetching us at 5pm but, the bus arrived at 6.30pm! Imagine the confusion and tense we went through just to make sure all of us can sleep on our own beds that night. =p

Anyhow, luckily the problem was solved and we were happy camwhoring and sleeping in the bus on our journey back to IMU. =) 

Pictures inside and outside the briefing room:

  

All in All

All in all, I gained a lot from this KKB postings.

I definitely learned how to do better physical examination since I get to do it on real patient this time, and I can really say one of my patient has dullness on percussion on his lower left lung!

We called and visited the maternity ward a lot of times, just to know whether there is any delivery being done. I've never watched any "live" delivery before thus I'm really anticipating a delivery. But, for the 3 days we've been there, there wasn't even one delivery! Even the nurse whom I asked answered in a very boring mood, "There has been no delivery, even we don't have cases to handle...Hurm...."

And I was like, what?? I thought delivery should be one of the easiest case to get, new babies are being born everyday. That, for me, reflectes the size of the KKB; no offence but I think KKB is quite a small town. Or perhaps, the villages have very good midwives that mothers need no hospital to deliver.

We managed to see a heart attack case on our last night there. The patient had been there for 2 hours so he was already stabilised and was waiting to be transferred to Selayang Hospital for further in-patient care. The doctor and attendants in the Emergency Room was pretty busy that none of us dared to ask them further about the case. Personally, I'm afraid of being snapped or scolded for intefering with their mounting workload. 

Dr Sevu gave us a enlightening speech. He advised us not to work in clinics because according to him, doctors working in clinics will lose their "clinical touch" after one or two years. And it's definitely not challenging compared to working in a hospital. He added that female doctors will usually opt to work in the clinics because the workload and working hours are less, simpler thus less strenous. 

Now, I'll say I don't want to work in a clinic. I want to continue practising as much as I can. After all, I spent (or will be spending) so many years learning the skills, why would I let it go wasted?

But of course, people change as time passes (at 14, I told myself I do not want to drive at all when I grow up) hence, who knows what will I say 10 years from now? 

Anyway, that's all.
Goodnight.

p/s: Some photos were taken from Natasha and Tay. Thanks! =p

-AkMaR-

http://nur-akmar.blogspot.com

Saturday 12th June 2010
12.58am