when will i wear it again?

*i'll miss being a coassisstant...

it's on the 2nd week of april 2007, if i'm not mistaken, when i came anxiously to the sardjito hospital as a new coassisstant for the first time. my thought was strangled with many kind of questions; will i able to pass this phase? will i do something wrong? will i accidentally messed up? will my patients be okay? will i get along with my new friends in the  group? will they accept me? will i be an individual or not? will everything be alright?? ...and at that  time, i was too afraid to answer all of those questions.

internal medicine was my first rotation, and as far as i can remember i've never been so diligent as when i was in this department; in my first week, when i was still a newbie knowing nothing and seemed to be lost in the middle of nowhere, i was assigned to assist a resident with the most patient counts in the ward, always more than 10 patients, and i'm alone! whereas some of my friends are lucky enough to be paired with fewer patient than mine!! T.T so there i am, the newbie, anxiously wake up every 4am--yeah, believe me, i was extremely too diligent at that time--to take bath, skipping breakfast, and drive away to the hospital, arrived at around 5.15am-5.30am carrying a heavy daily bag filled with some notes and internal med books, a hand-carry bag of a standard mercury sphygmomanometer, and not forgetting a small pink sling bag filled with a penlight, both digital and mercury thermometers, and a measuring tape. stethoscope? hanging on my neck ^^ i'm such an over-excited newbie anyway, apart that somehow i kinda want to be an internist someday regarding my mom's hidden illness that can't be cured up to this second, actually i really like studying internal meds. it's fascinating, in short. and still it is to me til now...

then the rotation went on and on... public health medicine and ear-nose-throat came shortly, followed by primary health care, dermatovenerology and psychiatry. together with 3 nurse coassisstants, we're spending 6 weeks in a primary health care in an outskirt-area of jogja. it was such a twilight for me, for being happy and unhappy. happy to face the patients as a "temporary real" doctor, and unhappy to know the reality of this country's medical facilities... like using some kind of drugs that actually had been banned? and a poor child with thalassemia who lived in such an unproper house and unable to afford any medications. i just can't help my tears from falling... T.T back then in my final year of undergrad, i did my thesis in dermatovenereology department, it's about keloid, a supposedly-to-be-simple biomolecular experiment using ultraviolet light, but i ended up in more than 12 months to finished it. frustrating, i've to confess, but that was the first time i found out that dermatovenereology attracts me. well... not until i get into the real rotation. some pros and cons happened in me when i was in the real set, and, yes, it disappoints me... and psychiatry?? nothing special, for the clinical part itself, but in the other part, the so-called-newly-formed-friendship had just getting stronger and better; as if our life were stopped around restaurants to eat and any comfortable desks to play poker--and, hey, i once played poker while i'm driving to a satellite hospital, y'know?? hahaha--plus a special thing for me to reminisce and again for my long-lasting i-know-it-and-i-can-do-it attitude: i drive myself and 3 friends to banyumas and back home, without changing driver. ooh i just love how it feels!

then obsgyn came, a nightmare for coassisstants that have been a legend for decades. and it happens to me. spending my 2 weeks out of total 8 weeks of the rotation in klaten, i lost my weight from 46 to 43-44 kgs. and for the first time of my life, me, who always been a food-eater and awarded by my dad as a "small-motorized-vehicle-with-double-decker-bus-capacity", or in indonesian language: "bemo muatan bis tingkat"--yeah, i eat more than you thought if you saw my figure ;p--but at that time, i craved for sleep more than for eat!! apart that i always amaze witnessing every second of the laboring process, it was a real tiring rotation. so no, i don't wanna be an obsgyn. no-uh.

having surgery rotation after obsgyn was such a heaven. thank God, i'm lucky enough for being created as female, regarding those 95% of surgery residents were male--if you got what i mean ;)--and having a killer urologist as my examiner was not a real problem, at all ;) ;) ;)

pediatric was supposedly another nightmare besides obsgyn, but spending 4 weeks in klaten was a real fun, and definitely not a nightmare like obsgyn. the pediatricians are nice and kind, especially our tutor, like i wrote before in here. i never know how it feels to have a grandfather, and i really want him as mine if i could :)

ophthalmology and neurology were another "heavenly" rotations. but not with anesthesiology after that. it was horrible horrible horrible. and waaaaay more tiring than obsgyn, well... imagine that, just like i wrote here. but radiology and forensic became such a happily-ever-after ending for my clinical rotation. it was fun, it wasn't tiring at all, and together with my sisterhood and brotherhood of kero gang--beware of it!--and culinary team, i've finished that 20-months-most-important-phase-of-my-life. i'll miss the hospital. i'll miss the patients. i'll miss all the rush happens. i'll miss all the troubles. i'll miss the night duty. i'll miss the canteens. i'll miss the smell of the public ward. i'll miss the freezing operating room. i'll miss the green and blue uniform. i'll miss the bedside study. i'll miss being "disappear" between working hours.

i'll miss being a coassisstant.

i really will.

*taken from my current friendster shoutout

on monday 17112008 i entered my last stage of clinical rotation, ta-da!! it's forensic for dessert! where i've to be ready on-call if there's any sudden autopsy even in the midnite. oh yeah, that part was sucks... >:p

i thought we'll have our first autopsy on tuesday or wednesday, but "fortunately" we had it sooner: on 17112008. oh yeah, instead of the second or third day, we had it on our first day, at 6pm, and straight to outer-inner autopsy for a murdered victim, not just an outer autopsy. oh yeah, it was soooo "great", wasn't it?? and the best part is, i was the "lucky" one getting the jackpot to be the first protocol, the one who's duty is to write down all, i mean all the result of the autopsy, from the outer to the inner, from every part of the body, from every single organ, continued to the laboratory examination result and the conclusion. oh yeah, that's awesome... since the autopsy itself had made us home at 11pm, but i've to report my work the next morning--ou dear, poor my hand...--and i'm successfully having a 3-hours-sleep only, started at 4am, after i finished that f*ck*ng 8 pages report, and don't forget... it's hand-written of course. oh yeeeeaaaaah...

and just last nite, thursday, 20112008, at around 11.30pm, there was an on-call-autopsy, again. when i thought it was a stupid boy having an accident for not wearing helmet while racing on his motorcycle with his stupid friends, the cadaver surprisingly was an unknown formerly death, with that "kinda" smell--i just can't explain how does it smell here, but trust me, there's a 50% probability you'll have a sudden-right-away puke if you smell it--which made us all put some coffee powder inbetween our doubled-or-even-tripled masks, some of us even sprinkled our masks with fragrance oil, including me. but not just the smell, the cadaver itself is a rotten one, with maggots maggots maggots here and there and here and there and eeeeeeverywhere all over the body. the scalp even already peeled off til just a tip above the ear and almost all side of the forehead, so we actually could saw the upper part of the cranium, with its suture at the vertex, "accessorized" with those chubby maggots comin' in and out.  oh yeaaaah again... and may god bless the abductor and his assistants ;)

seemed it will be a very unforgettable last stage in our coassistency period. pretty sure, it will...

ooooh yeeeeeaaahhh!!

*i've never been this tired since obs-gyn

yeah, for sure. these 2 weeks such an *ssh*l* for me, no doubt 'bout it. it was the definite tiredness i've to countered everydays, 24/7, for 2 weeks!! and oh God 2 weeks seemed like a month!!

i've to wake up everyday, without having a nap after subuh pray like always, quickly shut the bathroom door to take a quick bath in a damn cold dawn, and need to be arrive--yeah, arrive, not depart--in the hospital at 6.30am. even my eyes haven't awake fully yet! and then i've to sit nicely in a room, with heavy eyes and heavy head waiting for its time to fall asleep again, hearing all the reports for the upcoming operation of that day. then after that rushed to the operating room, preparing all the anesthetic thingies including the patients, from iv line to the drugs to the monitor to the intubation stuffs and that huge anesthetic machine. but that's not enough, for i've to wait until all the operations scheduled in the operating theater and we definitely can't leave before the patients are fully awake, with gcs score 15--the highest. i am frustrated. came earliest in the morning and leave the latest in the evening. not forgetting that there are schedule for the e.r and icu too, where emergency operations could be listed from noon til up to the next morning, and where all the ventilator and monitor machines are beeping unquietly.

i don't even have a time to update my writings here, see?? T.T

but thank God, it'll ended soon. tomorrow i'll have my last day in the operating room. i'm sick enough seeing those green wall with all the machines inside. enough is enough. and i'm waiting for my "holiday" next week.

hope it will be a real one. amen...

i don't wanna be either one of'em, naaaah!

currently i'm in my last week of ophthalmology clinical rotation, i've finished all my case reflections, my exam case status has been approved, and already got my examiner's name, a famous senior doctor, a bl**dy smart, and hopefully a kind one (with my mark, of course ;p).

at first i thought i won't be so interested with ophthalmology, but after spending my time there for weeks, met with a of the r-e-a-l expert til i got freeze in the operating room til 8.30pm (yes, professor... and now i'm having rhinitis T.T), treated soo nicely with a friendly one in wates (in fact i'm sure she's the nicest among them all! *love you dr. sisca ^^), and found out an interesting fact that if an ophthalmologist doing a cataract surgery they'll get paid as much as an obstetrician doing a c-sec, but of course only with local anaesthesia, v-e-r-y small amount of blood, and 15-20mins duration for each surgery. hmmm... do i smell money or what?? hahahahahahahahahaha :D

oh well... pray for me plz... so i could pass my ophthalmology exam with the best mark i could achieve, and i could start my ramadhan fasting with unstoppable smile in my lips, entering the next neurology clinical rotation happily, and after that... surely, will be the hooolidaaayy!! yeaaayy!!

...i'll be sleeping neatly in my first home! i've got all my stuffs in my bag, 2 dresses, 1 jeans, some bath and body care stuffs, ticket in my wallet... ahh if only i could go home today!! >,< *sighsighsigh*

i miss being home--even only for 9days--sooo much! that's enough reason for tomorrow should be my last day of pediatric exam, should be!! i'll swap all the things from nutrition status, growth and development, immunization, newborn and probs, shock and so... exactly before jumat pray!

"c'mon, doc... i need my holiday, CITO!!" (cited from my current friendster shoutout)

*a febrile seizure is a convulsion in a child triggered by a fever

today is my 1st day of pediatric exam, together with 2 of my friends, 3 of us headed to klaten (again) this morning to have our exam. lucky us! there are enough new patient admissions so each of us could get 1 patient for exam, at first we thought that it was dengue and friends... since the last time we're doing our jobs here it was dengue all over the pediatric ward. but we're missed, now it's the febrile seizure season! 1 of us got the simple one, the other 2 got the complex... (i got the complex one ;p)

after the morning visit, 3 of us hurry up doing all the examinations; history taking, immunization status, pedigree, growth and developmental status, physical exam, anthropometric measurements etc and then write nervously on our medical record paper made for exam. i don't know why, but i do feel nervous, although i'm lucky enough having a nice(st) specialist as my examiner. but still, an exam is an exam Xp

at 12.30pm i've finished completing my whole medical record, put it in a green map and placed it on my examiner's desk. 30 minutes later he came and we went back to the ward having my physical examinations evaluated. i did it fast, or maybe it's too fast that i could feel my heart palpitates a bit more than usual and sweats my hand while percussed and auscultated the child, somehow i could feel my hands become slippery... oh well, i just hope it'll be okay with my examiner! (and God i hope he didn't see the nervous me!!)

pfiuuuhh... now it's time to study the theories!!

omg... i've never thought that my last week of pediatric clinical rotation in sardjito's perinatology room would be like this, too horrible to be true. imagine this, for the last 4 weeks in klaten i could have some extra sleep after subuh pray and wake up at 7.30am, having my breakfast, take a slow bath, then drive away at 8.30am or even 8.45am, and still i could make it there on time, but this week?? i've to be there on perinatology room b-e-f-o-r-e 7am!! yeah rite i'm having a terrible jet lag... plus, we couldn't get out from that room during the working hours (7am-2pm), yeah 7 hours of sitting in a boring room and without any foods and drinks allowed (dine and drink only allowed in a pantry which is quite dirty, and most of the time filled with hungry and thirsty nurses), i'm totally sick of just sitting and being jailed for 7 hours like that, really. fortunately the first 3 days there are no supervisors since all the staffs headed to surabaya attending a huge meeting, so we're able to touch the babies (of course after spraying our hands thousand times each time before and after, and you know it'll make a girl's hand dry... T.T) to do follow-up every morning and noon, but since yesterday all of them are coming back, and there goes our nightmare begin worse...

there's a supervisor, a female pediatrician, having an advance skill putting us--poor co-assisstants--in a thrilling ambience everytime she's near. the way she stares, the way she talks, and yes you have to be there to feel what kinda thriller ambience i told before, but believe me, it's thrilling us.. today the boys all went back first for doing jumat pray, and the rest of us, all girls, still desperately sitting there and we're too scared to go out even we're just want to go to the toilet! the et causa is clear, today's supervisor is her... the thrilling-ambience-pediatrician. we've been warned by our friends having perinatology roon rotation before us, that if she's the supervisor of the day, we have to keep stay in the room, don't you dare to even go out and walking around, take off all your accessories, watches, braces, rings, evrything! and don't you dare to eat or drink (unless in that small room i told you before) for she'll stare you in a scary way and having you punished with remedial in perinatology room ranging from 1 day to the whole week. imagine that, being jailed, again, for 7 hours, in a thrilling ambience, sitting til bored to death!! one of my teammates even said that this just similar like the way we used to wait for maghrib in ramadhan, but different is in here we're waiting with mumbling, grumbling, grunting, and asking to each of every one of us, "what time is it now?" in every 10 minutes, neither with pray nor read Quran. i even said that 4 weeks in klaten were much better than being in sardjito's perinatology room for 1 week, it's true. and there she suddenly, finally goes to our room, clearly stated that we're not allowed to eat and drink, take off all accessories, or else she'll punish us with remedial in perinatology room (hell no!!), and we're just stare her like we're liliputs and she's gulliver. i am soo terribly desperate...

(and i still have 1 more day to be there tomorrow... ou my dear Lord help me!!)

meet them, my beloved teammates during our pediatric clinical rotation. well actually there are 5 of us, but the other one seems a bit shy to be captured here ;) we've spend these last 4 weeks together in klaten, in a hospital where we have to spend our time most. from perinatology room to the ward to the daily clinic... and here we are, gladly facing the fact that this saturday will be our last day there!! it's not that we're not having a good time and not much to be learned... but spending the whole 4 weeks in a same place? for me, i'm bored to death Xp thank God we don't have any heavy tasks, but it's become boring if you really don't have anything to do... like few patients in the ward? how do i'm expected to learn more?? at least our supervisor there was nice, yes he is nice, and i do really like him ^^ a javanese typical grandfather, with low-profile appearance everytime facing us or his patients. despite the fact that he's quite busy and he's a bit lazy too having discussion with more if it lasts more than 1pm.. yeah i know i'm infected with acute lazyness virus already too, but n'mind... it'll be over in a few days!! yeay!!

it's us!! ;)