Lay off the creeping.

A lot of medicine is about pretending. Usually I just pretend to be a doctor.

Today though I had to pretend to be competent at putting casts on and sewing up pig trotters. Luckily the first year medical students enjoyed it.

Then the firies and ambos got together and put on a show, extracting a couple patients from a car wreck for our entertainment. It was actually pretty good to see a live demo of a cut up and extracation, as some times the on call doc is called out to an accident scene and has to jump on in.

I was genuinely impressed by the volunteers. All of them giving up their own time and being exposed to some pretty horrific situations on occassion. It's strange the way people volunteer for those sorts of jobs.

Just before I came here as a student here, there was a pretty significant single vehicle accident. It sounds as though the experience was pretty traumatic for everyone, as all the GPs seem to reflect on it occasionally. It involved a young man who had been in a crash. One of the docs and the intern went out to meet the ambos and retrieved him. The patient was chatty and fairly well until they were rolling him in to the hospital. The patent deteriorated rapidly and died despite best efforts. The experience was hard on a lot of the staff. Veterans of seeing the elderly move-on, but the young are always hard. Why would you choose to watch and get involved in that?

I'm not sure what my point is. Other than trauma being traumatic and coping mechanisms being of variable efficacy. I guess some people just want to make a difference.

Drive safe everyone.

It took me half an hour to write this, and half a minute for you to read it. I wonder if you're really paying attention to the world longest title.

I've been pretty lucky this year. By virtue of circumstance and geography I've managed to see more sunsets, sunrises and the clearest night skies (as well as shooting stars and satellites) I've ever seen. I'm constantly impressed, amazed and left to ponder how and why we all came to be. It's a real blessing.

The other day I went to visit a friend in one of the other remote locations. It was a couple hours drive through the boonies to get there, but oh so pretty. I really enjoyed getting to see some of the riverland towns and surroundings. They felt so busy and alive compared to my tiny town!

I found myself driving back at night, perhaps a slightly silly thing to do, but still very pleasant. The sky was moonless, one section of the road virtually straight for over 90 kilometres. That some road had been entrancing during the day, but the dark star lit sky had become majestic with the headlights cutting a swathe through the trees. I only saw four other cars in two hours. It was a pleasant way to to travel.

I kept my eyes out for kangaroos hoping not to plow in to one at 110ish km per hour. Fortunately I didn't see any. Two-thirds of the way home I got to drive on to a ferry in the dark, in order to get across the river. Pretty much the middle of nowhere. The diesel engine of the ferry fired up as I approached from the steep bank, rumbling in to the still warm sky. I was the only person on board apart from the driver on a quiet weeknight in the sticks. As I drove off he reminded me to look out for roos. The significant amount of roadkill I'd already driven by had been warning enough though. I thanked him and resumed my drive.

What he should have been telling me though was to look out for wombats. As I was taking off from the ferry a wombat appeared in my high beams, only just distinguishable from the dark road surface. A rapid deceleration later... And luckily we didn't come together. It was pretty nice to see a wombat unexpectedly though.

I came out to the sticks to make sure I'd be happy spending the rest of my life in a big hospital. I feel more and more challenged by that notion every day.

One more assignment, and then its nothing but exams till the end of the year. And then just one more year and a few more assignments until I'll finally stop being a dead weight on society!

Heck yeah!

It's somewhat like Christmas

I've velt a lot of pregnant womens bellies this year. And I've got to be honest, I'm still useless at it. I can pick a head and that's about it. This disturbs me greatly as I'm usually pretty good with spatial orientation in other aspects of my life.

Oh well. Practice practice practice.

A toyotas a toyota

Had a good week medically this week. In fact the last few weeks have been pretty good, although nothing overly dramatic. I still enjoy the on call / emergency stuff the most as it lets one exercise the diagnostic and management side of medicine. Why is that good? Because in order to pick a management option you have to actually make a decision - something many med students and junior doctors tend to shy away from. Fortunately everything I do gets run by a doc. So it's nice to have that safety net :)

Anyway, my on-call day this week was quite busy. I really enjoyed it. Started with a dog bite, then conscious collapse, a ?pancreatitis, an atypical cardiac presentation, another chest pain, a ?cholecystitis, a classic URTI and then a non-specific abdo to finish.

I think that's why I like ED/ rural GP stuff. Good history, good examination, some procedural work and sufficient variety to keep the mind stimulated.

I'm starting to wonder whether I'm developing inclinations to certain areas of medicine!