Crunch Time

Our Lady of La Naval please bless all reviewers
Ora pro nobis

Three months. It would have to be enough.

Like a criminal waiting to be guillotined, I have been counting the days to that faithful august week when our 10 or so years of perseverance would be put to a test. I remember my college years, medschool years, clerkship and internship. I have indeed come a long way and a final block is standing on my way on becoming a licensed physician. I am just too eager to start working "with benefits" (I just feel I have been working for a year without any compensation hehehe - or rather, a meager compensation).

For now, a lot of us has enrolled in different review centers. I enrolled in the UST review, Kaye in UPEC, Steff and Verle waiting for the UP-PGH Exam Battery. I want us to do well. We will. Nothing is impossible with Mary's Intercession on our side. Mama Mary please pray for us.

Internship Graduation

The National Kidney and Transplant Institute played host to our DOH-PCSHC Post Graduate Internship Graduation4th of May 2009 at the NKTI Atrium. USEC Jade Del Mundo of the DOH was present. Our Group Leader Me-AN Recieved the Most Outstanding Intern award in General Medicine. Go Me-An!Me and My Mom

Preparing to go down, a Grand Entrance!

Pseudo Diplomas

Father Waiting for the Entrance

Group G (and me!)

More pictures at my flickr and multiply

Internship is Over!

One year of torment and bliss is over. Time to shift gears and go back to studying again. God bless us all. Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary La Naval de Manila help us and pray for us please!We threw our senior OB resident Dr. Jovic Bartolabac a baby shower which was also our grand duty!
Me and beautiful ma'am Judee, the kindest person in the delivery room complex. I was super toxic being the runner see my forehead shinnnnneeeeeee!
We watched the OB-GYN Department's block screening of X-Men Origins : Wolverine at SM The Block.
... and celebrated Aina's graduation with a lunch at Legend Restaurant.

Moviess

New model. Original Parts. Great movie. Fast paced and the effects are great! It was nice to see Vin Diesel and Paul Walker racing their cars again. A visual feast for those who adore cars.
I can hear all the girls giggling goodness... Anyway, it was funny, especially the character's best friend who is a dork, yes, but a filthy rich dork. I am ok on being a dork if I were as rich as he was.

Susan Boyle

This woman almost brought me to tears. She proves there is a God and He has put His graces on all of His creations. Good work Susan. I hope you get to the top.

Her surprise performance reminded me of mr. paul potts :-) kudos to both of you!

--lordzagato

I must feel tired

after 5 weeks of o.b. rotation, i have gone through 4 sub-rotations. i don't even know what is this i am feeling, this must be exhaustion. it's hard to explain. you are tired, yet looking forward to your next duty, maybe looking forward for the suffering to end. you don't want to get up anymore and go to work but you feel your body getting ready every 3rd day and you push yourself to the limit early at dawn when the lactic acid builds up in your gastrocs. sigh... what have i gone through so far?

the good (?) :

l.r. pay - rest time. taking care of patients who feel they are the gift of god to earth. get me a bedpan. call my relative. give this to my relative. get me tissue. it's hot. where's my doctor? when can i go to my room. i was so lucky i did not encounter this patient who was a private patient but had an attitude from a squatters area who gave a big shout-rant out in the hallway that we (us and the staff) were not feeding her. up her ass. how much is she!?

o.r. - standing all day all night. drinking a shot of alcohol before anesthesia referrals are accepted (yeah!). begging for double tables. hehehe i think i have a love/hate relationship with this subrotation.

the bad :

i.e. room/o.b.-e.r. - this is where we receive patients. and for a lot of times, you are alone when a patient first comes in. you get all kinds of people, and this is the place where you patience will get tested. your voice cracks by the end of your duty. "bawal ang bantay dito!" "bawal ang bantay!!!" at one point there was a relative who was mumbling things deliberately annoying me... "magsilayas kayong lahat!" shouted me. i didn't know i had it in me. i didn't care anymore, i just wanted those pesky relatives out of my sight. this is the place where i had a run in with a nurse. that's another story...

l.r. charity - there are times when you will be left alone to tend to more than 10 patients, most are on-labor, mothers who can give birth any minute, the others, toxic pregnant patients or toxic gynecology patients. you are the intensivist and ob-gyn at the same time... no time to rest, must check the fetal heart tones of each laboring mother.

worse :

i.e. room reloaded - sandy got "evicted" because of her "toxicity" she does not believe so. i don't believe too. we all have our down time and toxic time. well, alas... i volunteered to replace her. wrong move. i got battered from hair tips to toes... battered pretty bad. i had a moment that i want to go home. at one time, more than 5 bleeding patients and 4 pregnant came at the same time all wanting to be seen because it was an "emergency." message to pregnant patients... pleeeease you have nine months to prepare! why can't you even spare a few bucks a day of that nine months so you won't be trying to convince me you don't have work etc.. THEN DON'T GET PREGNANT PLEASE! if you don't have money... be a responsible adult and don't get pregnant!

Our "Interns' Lounge"

These are pictures of our OB interns' lounge. Yes.

Retreat in Caleruega

I finally had the opportunity to see the Caleruega Dominican Retreat House. The batch before us was banned when I was in highschool so our retreat didn't push through (that was the story I heard anyway). The place is fantastic.


Our retreat master was Dr. Oscar Tagulinao, our professor back in UST Medschool. He is a plastic surgeon by profession but is involved with Couples and Singles for Christ as his ministry. He is an entertaining speaker. You'll never feel threatened he'll call you. You almost feel like you want to be called and enter into a conversation with him.


Food there was ok. I enjoyed catching up on rest and sleep. Yes. I was a fugitive again and did not attend a lot of session. I could've won the fugitive award if it was up for grabs but I thought I should recuperate from the OB onslaught while I had time because we're about to go back to that again tomorrow.


I did enjoy taking lots of pictures though. It's fortunate Marga brought her tripod so I was to able to take a lot of HDR photos (some are here, more in my multiply and flickr site).


I really really had a great time, I hope I can get back there and just... retreat from the city.

more pictures here and here >>

Sparring with the Devils of EAMC

I have yet to publish my unfinished initial rant about the DR Nurses at East Avenue but as of our last duty, more things have happened.

1. Me-an, our most patient, kind groupmate who we have rarely seen get mad broke her fuse during our last duty and confronted a DR nurse who cannot shut up and endlessly comments nasty stuff within your earshot
2. A nurse tore off and threw our junior intern's discharge summary. Our JI already makes this and inserts them at the chart even on admission so that all they have to do is fill up the last details of the PE on discharge to lessen their work. Bitch!
3. A nurse keeps on throwing down charts rudely.
   
4. A nurse pulled an instrument rack i was resting my head on (I have not gotten any sleep). She neither apologized nor did anything even when I made an audible "Aray!"
5. A nurse said to me... "Ano ba yan, Poor Assist." during a surgery.
   

I am losing my mind. I don't understand why we have tolerate this kind of behavior from them. And don't they tell us that what they do is tiring because they are only on 8 hours per day. I don't remember if I forgot anything more but I will try to recall everything. I DON'T WANT TO FORGET.

MV Doulos

MV Doulos with Verle, Kaye and Steff

We revisited MV Doulos while docked in Manila this year. I wasn't able to buy anything, but I had fun taking photos. We ate at Brooklyn Pizza in Robinson's Place Manila afterward.

Lunch at Bigoli's

We had lunch at Bigoli's Trinoma. Yes, I had Italian for both lunch and dinner. It was to be our last lunch together. The OB resident's schedule has been jumbled and they are not our duty-mates anymore. Sob. Sob. I loved our dynamic. We knew how each other works and we were already efficient in how we do things. I hate the people who had to separate us. Hmmp.

more pictures at my multiply and flickr page >>

Viva Señor!

OB Delivery Room Complex

more pictures at my flickr page.

Back to Intramuros

The Fugitive Interns

This is the funny story of two fugitive intern pals Marco and Chris.

After a toxic rotation, these two interns gave up on all the worries of life and looked forward to a benign rotation before going into the hell of obstetrics. I think they decided that nothing will stand on their way of getting their much needed R&R.

Day 1. The two fugitives decided they did not want to go immediately and show up at their rotation. They had lunch at Trinoma instead. After they finally showed up at their respective rotation. They were assigned patients to rounds for SOAPing.

Day 2. Attended a conference with free food. Of course they were present. Free Food. Chris's top two favorite words. Which can go separately and together become even better! Free. Food. Free Food!!! The patients!? What Patients??

Day 3. OPD Day. oops... They had a "reporting" -- not a lie, they did had a reporting which took the entire afternoon. Still no patients :-)

Day 4. Finally. OPD. Chris saw... 1 patientssssssss. Marco 1 patientssssssssss... pretty busy... It came to pass that it was time to wrap up the OPD. Both were sitting across the intern's monitor when... "So.... who is your patient in the ward?" .... .... .... (Marco pursed his lips... his EEG and ECG tracings must have been off the charts already. Chris pretended to look at the ceiling) "You don't have patients yet have you!?" (Chris slowly shakes his head while looking remorseful) HAHAHAHAHA well... the fellow... did not get mad and assigned them each one patient plus a whole ward to make rounds :-) ... and had them report on a topic too...

Day 5. After their reporting another fellow asked "Why are you asking them so many questions?" Answers "Because they're so MASIPAG (with all the sarcasm in the world)" bwahahahahaha...

So it came to pass that these two are now in a VERY TOXIC ROTATION two months short of finishing their internship.

PCMC

The Children of Philippine Children's Medical Center