My second week has confirmed one thing: bad things happen in fours. I have found myself shocked by the shear number of patients who are in the ICU with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms. For those non-medics amongst you, ruptured aortas anywhere are a bad thing- you bleed out and make a mess! I’d never seen one that had ruptured before this week; my only previous experience had been planned AAA repairs, where the aneurysm had not yet ruptured. Each of the patients had a different presentation, which was strange.
I was with a different consultant this week, who is the head of the departments, which was a bit frightening, particularly when he asked me to present on ventilator-associated pneumonia. I think I was fairly lucky in so much as his cerebrum was working at a level so beyond mine that I don’t think he was expecting much!
This week has been quiet for practical procedures, but good for meeting other students on elective. I have been to steak night with both British and Dutch students, and we went to the Blue Mountains over the weekend. More to follow about that later…
No comments:
Post a Comment