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