If last week I've been on Anaesthetics rotation in UCHG, now I will be shifting into Critical Care rotation this week. No more spending hours and hours in the operation theatres that your legs felt like falling apart after a long time standing watching whatever which were going on. It wasn't too bad though and instead I enjoyed it! Every rotation got me new experiences and I found fun in their very own way.
Somehow I began to fall in love with anaesthetics and deep in my heart I felt like becoming an anaesthetist one day. This isn't a new thing really as I've been dreaming of being one since small, but it kept changing anyway. When I spoke about this to my housemate who's in her 5th year now, she was saying that there's a lot more to come and I'll be thinking of being everything. I guess she's right, at this stage I haven't got the big picture in my head just yet, merely those pieces of puzzle that I need to collect and put together as I go along this medical school years.
Being an anaesthetist, you hold an enormous responsibility on your shoulder to ensure that everything goes smooth-sailing and the patient is stable throughout the surgery. I learned that the essences of anaesthetics are narcosis, anaesthesia and paralysis [I think there's a better term for the last word]. This means that you want the patient to be unconscious so that he's not awake to watch the surgeons ripping his abdomen, enough pain relief because noone likes pain and a relaxed cum steady body muscles which are easy to operate on. So there you go!
I'm happy that I called it an achievement when I was given the trust to perform some procedures at the outset of the operations. Nothing much really that I did but somehow managed to intubate some patients- with the assistance of an anaesthetist of course. Also I put in some IV cannulas into the patients veins at the operation theatre to get some signatures signed off, oops. I liked doing those procedures though, not solely for the signatures- but obtaining people's confidence in me was tough. Ya what does a third year medical student know? I understand that though, they wanted the best for their patents- that's the spirit!
There was this one day that I observed an anaesthetist inserting a central line and apparently he took quite some time to get everyting sorted. I tell you it wasn't a piece of cake- it's about patient's life so take it serious! ;) I think the surgery was delayed for nearly an hour or so that the surgeon repeatedly walked in and out of the theatre possibly thinking "when will this people finish putting my patient into sleep so that I can start?". Distressing! I reckon the anaesthetist must be very pressurized by everyone watching and waiting for him to get the patient ready lol. A couple of the team members including a Consultant Anaesthestist also came in to see if everything was fine. The patient wasn't that a very handy patient too as he's moving his head a bit and requested for someone to hold the drape off his face when the anaesthetist was doing his stuff- guess who had to do that? Now that's what a medical student's job- not complaining! :P
Watching people going unconscious was quite an experience. Different anaesthetists have different ways of dealing with patients in that transition state. Propofol is a very powerful anaesthetic agent that patients could be knocked out in I think less than a minute. One style is that bringing the patient into a chat after letting them know that we're going to put him to sleep. Ask about the patient's summer holiday plans or so then suddenly the patient began to roll his eyes in the middle of the conversation and failed to respond when his name was called out. Scary a bit for a beginner like me, as since we're able to bring him to sleep so we have to be able to make him wake up as well!
Anyhow I wrote this entry to share with you a verse from the Quran that I reckon correlates well with my story;
"It is Allah Who takes away the souls at the time of their death and those who die not during their sleep. He keeps those [souls] for which He has ordained death and sends the rest for a term appointed. Verily, in this are signs for a people who think deeply."[Az-Zumar, 39:42]
In a nutshell whether we just got back to life from the effects of anesthetic agents or simply woke up from bed every morning, say thanks to Allah for giving us the chance to live for another day. Make full use of that particular day because there'll come one day when you won't wake up anymore. Wallahu'alam.
akak, i love this one.
as I do love to know abt anaesthetics.
The reaosn why, it is all there inside ur entry.
very well elaborated :)
thanks sanah. byk benda baru akak bljr fr rotation ni sbb kurg publicity kot anaesthetics ni huhu. anyhow jzkk for ur support! tc ;)