Scrub in

I meant to post an entry yesterday but I was too tired and went to sleep early as I arrived home at quarter past 8...I even stopped at Aida's house for Asr...Aida's place is just in front of the bus stop..I won't be able to make it if I went straight home...again, lack of judgment on my side...if only I prayed at the hospital rather than walk out of the door as soon as I finished, I wouldn't have to worry about missing my prayer...

Anyway, I enjoyed my OT session yesterday...even though the first two cases weren't really gynae cases...both were superficial skin "cyst"..as Dr John put it,"biji"...(he's a Malaysian too!!and he's the head of the O&G department at the hospital)..only it was located at gynae's territory that the consultant had to do the biopsy...

Dr John was very nice that he let me do the vaginal examination on his patient with high grade cervical lesion..he also taught me to do a speculum examination which he signed off as a pap smear!Yay!!

I felt a bit frustrated when I couldn't get into the theatre for the Caesarean section..the patient was anxious for her surgery as she had a bad experience in her previous Caesar...so when I asked for her permission, she was reluctant to say yes, and I just told her that she can always say no...then, No it is...
It worked out well anyway, as I had one hour to perform Zuhr prayer before the final surgery of the day which is a vaginal hysterectomy...


The best moment of the day is when Dr John threw me the question, "Would you like to scrub in for this surgery?" For sure the answer is yes..I would be crazy to say no...I believe no med student will say no to such an opportunity...never...
Although, I might be one of the few med students who had never scrubbed in when they are already in the 4th yr of their medical education...I should hv plenty of opportunities when I was in 3rd yr if I were to be more proactive...

While Dr John and Annie(the registrar) were busy doing their job down there, I was asked to hold the vaginal retractor in place..(to be honest, it's pretty boring)..Dr John warned me that it's also a tiring job that he even fell asleep once but he also said, it's what every surgeon had to go through before they start doing exciting real-surgeon job..hehehe...
I like Dr John very much..he let Annie do everything while he supervised her...He kept her motivation going by complimenting on her job and he always thanked the nurse for their assistance...

After about 20mins standing on the platform, holding the retractor, dressed in the scrubs and barely moving, I started to feel a bit funny...I tried to stay there for as long as I can and thank God, Dr John suddenly said,"Ok,that's done"...I stepped down from the stool and asked Liz(the nurse) to pull down the mask slightly as I felt it was a bit too tight..probably because she used to see people fainting in theatre she quickly responded by removing the mask from me and asking other nurse to get a glass of juice..even Dr Ranjan(the anaesthetist) was nice that he gave me the stool he was sitting on....Liz asked me if I had breakfast and lunch and I told her I had brunch at 11am(which is almost 7 hours ago)...I guess I was hypoglycaemic after all..I felt a lot better after having a few sips of the orange juice and I decided to join the team back...
I was happy that I had a near-faint episode in a theatre which is full of nice people...I thanked everyone profusely before I left and the nurses responded, "Don't worry, we've all been there!!"....If I became a surgeon in the future, I wish to have a supportive team behind me...which will make theatre an enjoyable environment to work in...