new year...looking back in time..

Today is 01.01.2009..time flies..it's been 8 years now that I'm breaking my bones, flexing my spines and tearing up muscles..all the sleepless nights..sweats n tears.. to bring life to the world! OBGYN is deemed to be a rather hectic at times but to me, its very fulfilling and rewarding..there were dissapointments of course, but looking at those little ones, cry of joy from parents and a simple thank you already made my day.. for me, I do get these more than those complaints or shouts or bad outcome event..surely once in a while it happens.

Looking back in time, I was never much into Internal Medicine or any medical related works for that matter..my neurons are not capable of handling many synapses of all those differential diagnoses that one has to come up with when dealing with a medical patient..eversince my medical school postings, I usually ran out of my DDx even before my turn came up to answer..LOL

In my clinical years, I thoroughly enjoyed my Surgical postings, Mr.Boyle whom I did my residency surgical attachment, included me in the team, I clerked patient, prepped them up for surgery, scrubbed in and he taught us a lot during those long hours of AP resection. The team itself was very enegertic and nice, Guan the intern (read:HO), Bernadette the SHO, Ravi the most wonderful senior Registrar, whom I had the opportunity to work under him during my intern year. My partner in crime was Peter Branaggan, a lovely northern Irish lad, together we came up with tricks and tactics to evade another classmate of ours (suffice to say bout him to this point only..hehe) who was also in the same team but different aspiration shall I say.

My O&G posting in the Coombe Women Hospital was cut short by the nationwide nurses boycott then, for one whole week we did not have to go to wards simply because nothing was going on, hardly any patient, no surgery, no nurses except in critical areas like labour room with minimal number, SHOs had to do more, medical students were told to stay away..we gladly left and spent time at the movies.. but later I did sit in few of Dr. Patricia Crowley's clinic, with her (because other people simply didn't want to, she could be pretty hard n strict), surprisingly I enjoyed her clinic the most, yess she could be very intimidating but she was a very passionate consultant and a very good teacher, provided she saw your determination to learn.. We had great time during evening classes with Dr.Eric Bartel, I think he's German, very nice and coached us a lot for viva and osces..The gorgeous Dr.Deidre Murphy and another goodlooking consultant whose name I forgot took us for gynae surgery in St.James's Hospital.. unlike in Malaysia, here we could do internal(pelvic ) examination unless in OT, after the patient is under anaesthesia, just before painting begin, with consent from patient prior to going in, well..most of them didnot consent.. therefore, it's left to our imagination.. the same goes with conducting labour, we werenot allowed to do VE, mainly due to no consent, up to only when the baby was crowning with many hands of midwivs gotten your hands mangled in between.. I'd only manage to get 3 vaginal deliveries during my 1 week of night shifs in labour room.

I did compensate for the lack of above by doing my elective posting in labour room, HUSM during summer holiday..I et a bunch of nice people that made me thinking working in Malaysia wouldn't be so bad. My supervisor, Dr.Nik Hazlina (Assoc Prof now) who just graduated then, was the nicest, soft spoken and taught me thru O&G services in Msia. I counducted quite a number of patients, clerked those coming in, inserted IV cannula, took blood, washed all the equipments, was working as HO and enjoying it. My LR Registrar, K.Intan was also once from Dublin, so the bonding was stronger, I followed her everywhere, she let me assisted her during LSCS, with no HO around, she is now a private consultant OBGYN in Seremban,met her again recently,after all those years. She inspired me to excel in O&G and now she still is.. There was
also K.Murizah who was the MO incharge of labour room, who used any spare time she has to teach us, HOs n students, I followed her around during oncall, she is now in Alor Setar and an ART consultant. There was Dr.Siew and Dr. Rosilawati who allowed me to hold u/s probe during scan session and let me currette the uterus during D+C with him, very much to the envy of his medical students..huhu.. wonder where they are now.. My 1 month posting was a memory to be remembered always, Prof. Nik , Kak Intan and K.Muri we do meet up at courses and they're still very nice and friendly towards me and remembered me as their one month student!

Naturally, I did better in Surgical-based exams in the final year, Dr. Crowley called me for viva and she was waiting for me when our final results were out at the dean's office. She pulled me to the front of the board and said," Nasuha, look here, this is the gift from the department to you..", she was smiling away as I looked up at the board, there was PASS in Medicine, Surgery and 2nd CLASS HONOURS in Obstetrics!! I was speechless, we hugged and I thanked her profusely. That was the last time I saw her..