On the sexually active

I think medical social workers are cool. They get paid to be nosy. LOL.

I mean, well, as a doctor, you don't actually, or rather, seldomly, would sit down and dig all sort of information for your patient which would not benefit you. Like, you wouldn't even care what a patient did in the past if it's not medical. Most of the time.

So there was this young teenage girl who came in because she had itchiness in her private part.

Given the presenting symptoms, my first wild guess would have been that she's practicing promiscuity without protection. And I was right. I mean, it wasn't meant to be that way, I wasn't judging, I was just being logical. She's 16. Pretty. Lean. Atheltic. And already had puberty.

And so, it was that. She had sex with her boyfriend. Who was 17. 3 times weekly. At the boyfriend's brother's room with the permission of his sister-in-law. (I know! Twisted right?!)

Any medical student would have stop short at that. Well, you solved the case. Sexual transmitted infection. Boyfriend probably had sex outside with other girl, yes, perhaps you would get that part. Or perhaps she had sex with other boys, that too, many would have thought about.

But that's not all our medical social worker got from the girl. Apparently, she first had sex at the age of 13 with a boy aged 18. And she had since had 10 boyfriends, averagely lasting 6 months each, longest being 2 years which was her 5th relationship. Had lots of sex. Very active indeed. But never got pregnant. Involved in orgy before too, with one of her many ex-boyfriends, with another good girlfriend of hers, who was also coupled to another guy who was her ex-bf's good friend. And not only that, they had some 'stimulants'. But that wasn't all. Apparently, the last intercourse she had with her current boyfriend, they had it for about 12 hours. With the aid of stimulants of course...

I was speechless reading the report alright. Very colourful life indeed.

Rest assured, she was enrolled in some rehab after discharge. And the boyfriend was brought to juvenile court. Girl's Mum was depressed, needing psychologist referral.

On the Cabin Crew

I have since started working, learnt to accept the reality that, if you do not benefit to others, you're nobody. It's a realistic world. Money matters. Health matters. You have no money, no talk. You are sick, you won't be hired. So I have learnt to see things coldly. Just how I thought I would ended up becoming one when I was younger - that as one starts to work as a doctor, life and death is just a norm. Bluntly put, if you die, you die.

Let me rephrase. I think I have turned cold-blooded.

So there was this other hot hunk who was beaten up and and fell from 2 storeys, causing some fractured spine and (I personally thought) paralysis of the right leg. He works with this certain XXX airline for almost a decade now. During his ward stay, apparently we were all wondering how sad he must be, still yet to accept the fact that he might be paralyzed for life, considering his lumbar spine were pretty badly crushed and the right leg being neurologically lost beyond salvagable.

So we got the medical social worker on board.

And as per usual, they get pretty interesting stories from this man.

Apparently, he believed his company would hold his position for him and wait for him till he recovered, even if it takes years.

And now I wonder - would that even be possible?

Realisitically?

I mean, yes I did remember having seen a really good looking hot guy back in my university hospital going for a scan. He has muscular upper torso and all, but he's totally paralyzed leg down. AND, he's very handsome.

Therefore, I began to wonder, perhaps there really are some party who are nice enough to actually take care of the welfare of their employees. Even if it means the employee would not be as productive as before.

Life shouldn't be grim after all huh?

On the Crushed Hip

Was scrolling down the CT pelvis of a patient who was bed-bound. Rumor had it that he was knocked down by a truck...

But now that we saw the scan with the pelvis totally crushed, I wonder, was he knocked down by a truck or was he ran over by one?

On the Urethrogram

Urethrogram - A retrograde urethrogram is a routine radiologic procedure (most typically in males) used to image the integrity of the urethra. Hence a retrograde urethrogram is essential for diagnosis of urethral injury, or urethral stricture.

There was this hot hunk who had hematuria after being rammed by a bike and we were worried about urethral injury, so we put in catheter into the bladder suprapubic-cally. And we sent him down for this urethrogram.

He came back with this.

I have no freaking idea what am I looking at.

But of course, it was supposed to be a series of scans. When the contrast was injected, you would be able to see the patency of the urethra and the bladder. But this... this is just the one of the contrast media in the bladder... and it wasn't flowing out...

So I gave the radiologist a call.

Apparently there was some sort of urethral stricture, some injury or something. No idea what from however.

So we called the urologist. She saw, and said, she had no idea how to manage as well.

So the images were brought to be discussed in the X-ray meeting...

On the Craniectomy

Often times during medical school, in neurology especially, we talked about stroke or intracranial hemorrhages, the classification and what nots; subdural hemorrhage, epidural hemorrhage... But as a medical student, I never actually thought about what would happen after. I thought my medical lesson stopped short at diagnosing and investigation modalities.

But boy was I wrong. SO damn wrong.

McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy did craniactomy and Lizzie was damned amazed with taking a piece of skull. Well, that was the famous medical drama series Grey's Anatomy, and yes, I was hooked at one point.

Little did I realized how bizarre it actually was, to have a part of your skull cracked open to relieve the pressure building inside your skull. Yes of course, it was the life-saving move. Heck you would probably die from coning, with the pressure building inside that confined space of a skull, and slowly pushing the brain out via the inferior hole, and wham- you stopped breathing.

But imagine this. To relief the building pressure, you crack the skull and take out a small piece of the skull, so that the brain has some place to swell up, i.e. - OUT.

And it's infinity space for expansion.

But of course, I suppose the swelling would have stopped at some point anyways. So it prevents the brain from swelling downwards which would stop the respiratory system. Which saves a person's life.

So yes, there was this guy, who was alcohol intoxicated, knocked by a lorry, and flung a few meters away, and found unconscious by the road side. Urgen CT scan of the brain showed this.

WHAM!

Any neurosurgeons would jumped out of bed and pushed him into the OT and cut upen the skull...

Which they did.

And the man survived...

For another week that was.

He remained comatosed. Intubated.

And one fine day, after discussion with the family, his daughter agreed to stop prolonging his sufferings and decided to pull the plug.

He died the next day.

On the X-ray report

Many often times, senior consultants laughed at what jokers house officers are. True, we are pretty dumb at times. But with time, we grow wiser and more experienced. And with time, we learnt to behave more mature. And we learnt to be more proffesional...

It was just that there was this one day, my friend showed me a report of a chest X-ray.

I don't know whether I should laugh. But is it me or do you also think that, this report should not be seen by the public?

My friend totally lost their trust in this senior consultant radiologist. A tube directed towards the brain? The patient might have died from sepsis already.

But to be fair, the radiologist had no idea what or how the patient looked like.

Still... I thought it was a bizarre 'note'.

Spin-off

I don't know how many followed my old blog would have known that I've graduated from medical school. I mean, it was a silence for a while since I never mentioned anything about work then, and it's been travelling here and there and all. Heck if I were to really do so without work, Bangkok, Beijing, Singapore, Bangkok again, Singapore again... I think I would have been totally broke. Like D'oh, of course I work! LMAO.

And hence.

The spin-off.

My life as a medical slave.

Many would have thought it was a dream come true. I thought so myself. I mean, darn, I even had the quote in my old blog that it was a blog to carry the journey or the daily lives of a medical student who finally entered medical school and is becoming a medical doctor. But with the quality of life as a medical doctor in Malaysia, you would have thought otherwise.

Then again...

There are lots of things I wanna share in my day to day living.

Apart from my travelling which I am more than happy to brag about. But yes, I shall talk about my work here.

It's not ethical of course. I think. But this is all anonymous. Or at least I tried to make it that way.

So.

Welcome to Medielicious spin-off - On the Brink of Life and Death...

Muahahahahahaha....