The girl in the white coat

Apart from that being the blog of a friend of mine [Read Nicole Spence’s blogs at www.thegirlinthewhitecoat.blogspot.com ], it serves as a description of my day.

Today was… pretty incredible. It was the first time I donned my white doctor’s coat and went to hospital. Although we didn’t do anything, it was quite the experience. As I’ve said before, the coat gives one a somewhat perverse sense of power. And, I won’t lie, some people look at your with something close to admiration- not that we’ve done anything in our short lives to deserve it.

We spent an hour with our registrar, Dr Elmo Pretorius, who took us through the general examination. There exists a wealth of knowledge in those who have gone before us, and this was particularly evident today. It seems as though we’ve only been at it for a short time, but to be able to walk into a hospital ward and understand at least part of the medical jargon makes one realize just how much we have learnt.

The MBChB 2018 class was split up into groups of 8 members each, for these hospital sessions. Apart from myself, my group consists of: Stian “Sports and TV are what I like” Nieuwoudt, El-Marie “Animal Lover” Gallant, Firdows “they call me Death Star” Gamieldien, Duval “Oh yeah. I can sing” Geddie, Jacques “I’m a sea person” Geldenhuys, Lee “I only wear Addidas shoes” Murdock, and Haley “I smuggled a hamster into my res room for an entire year” October. That’s how they introduced themselves- I am so serious right now. Well, they didn’t put their one-interesting-thing-about-me fact in between their names and surnames, but I’m sure you get the gist.

Introductions aside, I’m quite happy with my group- peculiar lot that we are. I’m just excited to go back to the hospital and actually do stuff.

P.S. Our patient was a confounding case, and neither Doc Pretorius nor the consultants know what is wrong with her. Yet. But I’ll be sure to keep you guys posted. Well, it is getting late, I’m beat, and I really should be studying for my end-of-block next Friday.

Ciao ciao. And remember to keep monitoring that pulse!

Xoxo

12 February 2014

Vensters 2014

Once again, it has been ages since I’ve last blogged about anything. And not for lack of content either. I’ve been quite busy.

Shortly after my last post, my family and I went away on holiday. Epic as it was, that week should have had an entire blog dedicated to it, but alas. It does not.

Also, in my previous blog, I mentioned that I was anxious for second year to begin. I take that back. Kind of. There is just so much work to be done! By the time the first years started, not only had we been back for 3 weeks, but had already written our pre-clinical test.

But this is about Vensters, the single most looked-forward-to event of first year orientation. They put on street shows all over main campus and, for just R15, one gets access to every single one. It was an incredible night, one that brought back a multitude of memories from my own time performing at Vensters. My friends and I traipsed around the campus, singing and dancing like the unstable characters we are. I saw my cousin Ghaalib briefly, got bulldozed by Laylah [Read her blogs: www.theethrealdeal.com ], and, to my absolute wonderment, ran into an old friend. Suffice it to say I did not expect to see him there, but it was nonetheless fantastic seeing Micky again.

So much went down that night. More than once, we ended up lying in the road, just staring up at the stars, unable to move much. We laughed and laughed at jokes that weren’t even funny. Mohammed and I had an argument [all in good humour], things were said a little too loudly, and Taufeeq and Adam got the wrong idea. We made a point of not explaining it. Have a little fun, they say. J Also, a very happy 20^th birthday to Khalid Mohamed ‘Poppie’ ‘Pops’ ‘Popsicle’ ‘you-have-too-many-nicknames-to-remember’ Pohplonker.

Although I only got home at 2am, and got very little sleep before I had to be up and head off to take care of some business, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. So thank you, to everyone who made Friday night so absolutely epic, whether you were mentioned by name or not. Also, to the rest of the crew, who could unfortunately not make it, we really missed you.

Here’s to a crazy year ahead, and many more awesome nights like this! =) <3

2 February 2014