Bypass

I like hanging out with doctors. It means I can have my phone as obnoxiously loud as I want, and nobody cares because you fit right in.

They do know that my 'extremely important messages' are just facebook updating though, right?

I drove 800km this week :/

Rule number 666

Note to self: Don't ever get an embarrassing tattoo in an embarrassing area. Actually, just don't ever get a tattoo. Best to be on the safe side with these things. You never know when a room full of people will be staring at it.

Actually this ones pretty good...

Learnings of the week

1. ACE inhibitors can cause hyperkalemia. So always do repeat bloods.
2. Surgeons don't retire, they just hide in part time private practice.
3. Going home and snorting cocaine won't cure intractable bleeding.
4. If in doubt, the answers are staphylococcus, cephalexin or flucloxacillin. 
5. There are more than two types (small and big) of potato.

Chefs special: Seniors.

Pop goes the ...

Had a shot at relocating my first shoulder yesterday. No love, couldn't quite manipulate it properly. Luckily the veteran doctor swept in and effortlessly put it back with what can only be described as a visually spectacular relocation. So weird watching the bulge of the humerus recede back under the deltoid and in to the armpit. I want to do the next one!

You don't have to be a doctor to know that something doesn't look quite right here. The question is what?

The patient (another victim of the aquatic activities that occur so frequently around here) managed to get her heart rate above 200, she was that nervous before the relocation. I was suitably impressed at the bodies ability to dump adrenalin, even when lying down in bed. She was understandably shaking like a leaf. Not that she remembers that anymore.

Magic magic drugs. Fascinating!

The chefs special this week seems to have been ulcerated and or infected feet.

Long weekend

A lot of the med students gathered back in Radelaide this long weekend. It was good to see all the people who had gone rural, as well as the city slickers. It was a good opportunity to exchange war stories from out first week on the job.

I thought I had had an interesting first week. What with spending a day in surgery and then having a sink hole open up in my garden and try and swallow me. But apparently my week was medically boring.

One of my friends was asked to relocate a shoulder (because the intern was too scared to try) on his first morning in the clinic. He also got to perform a mental block unsupervised.

But the best story I heard was from another of the rural girls. Her first night on call yielded a person who had had their ear completely bitten off in a fight. Literally the whole ear, back to the bone of the skull. It was disgusting... yet cool. And there were photos to prove it.

I can't wait to start on call this week!

Beeeep. Sizzle.

Got to assist in surgery today, it was an interesting time. May not have learned that much, but I've always wanted to get involved in the theater.

I hope I get used to the waking up at 5:30 though.

Health watch

Well I moved. I don't have internet yet, so don't expect any updates. I've run the twenty metres up the hill from my hospital shack to steal the free hospital internet.

It's quite pleasant here. There is a pleasing afterglow as the sun goes down. The lights of the hospital emergency department are glowing behind me. A pleasing view of the river is on my left.

All in all, the fundamentals are here for a good year :)

Excited? Much.