Enlightenment

I slept in a rather odd position last night, which made me wake up with ‘pins and needles’ in my hands. The first thing that came to mind was ‘The paraesthesia is in my ring finger and little finger…which means that I was compressing my ulnar nerve.’ Yes, it’s rather sad. Never expected something medical to dominate the first and last thoughts of my day! My first thoughts are usually along the lines of ‘Damn bloody alarm clock…’

It’s interesting when theory meets real life though. As I was reading the first chapter of ‘Deep Simplicity’ yesterday (I was chased out of the consultation room by a patient), I finally realised what differentiation and integration in maths are used for, and it actually got me interested. This may be painfully obvious to some, but as far as I can remember, none of my secondary or tertiary education teachers bothered to point out the rationale behind me solving all those equations. I told Sweetie about my discovery, but of course it was old news to her. I guess I would’ve been more interested in higher level maths if I had known about its practical applications. That explains how I spent one month reading up on statistics (after a year of falling asleep in class) and actually came to enjoy it.

Things are going ok at the moment. I’m in one of my happy phases, and it’s probably due to a number of factors. Revision is going steady, handed in my ethics essay on Tuesday, got a couple of loose ends tied up and settled, am very happy for a friend of mine. All in all, no huge complaints. The weather could be a little warmer though.

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I realised that I’ve been quite lucky in my attachments so far - except for the crappy RVI rotation, I’ve been attached to very friendly and competent people so far. Naturally, I’ve learned a lot from them, besides having a rather enjoyable time. I guess the biggest piece of evidence would be the fact that I don’t mind travelling to Lynemouth despite the unreasonable distance involved. If it wasn’t worth it, I wouldn’t bother.

Dr Prem (my GP supervisor) has been particularly good. We get along pretty well, and he’s quite empathic when it comes to me being a student – allowing me to leave home relatively early, giving me time off for my concert last week. And it’s great that we get to chat about loads of stuff – from Green Day and Beethoven to politics and relationships. And medicine, of course.

I think that GPs are a rather misunderstood lot. It’s amazing the amount of flak they receive, despite the pile of work that they have to go through each day. They do seem to be underappreciated by the folks at the hospital, and even us students have a rather biased point of view, especially due to the fact that we hardly ever get attached outside of hospital.

Some of us are only beginning to understand how difficult it is to ‘layan’ patients. On the one hand, you’re supposed to be compassionate, empathic, a good listener and be really caring. On the other hand, you’re supposed to ‘stand aside’ and not be too involved emotionally to ensure your own survival. How does one balance the two?

There’s also the fact that there are two sides to being emotional beings. Yes, you can be caring and all, but there are also negative emotions that we all feel every more often than not. And it’s not easy suppressing these emotions in the face of rather idiotic patients who, at first glance, are just a waste of one’s time.

‘Doctor, I’ve got this horrible backache and my feet are all swelled up. Why is this happening?’ Because you’re too damn fat. A BMI of 49 isn’t exactly recommended by the Idiot’s Guide to Good Health.

‘Doctor, my belly’s aching and I’m being sick with blood all the time.’ Yes, that happens to a 24 year old who’s drinking over a hundred units of alcohol a week and has liver cirrhosis. Perhaps if you start drinking water for a change...

‘Doctor, my nose is running all the time and I’ve got a headache.’ It’s a bloody viral infection, for God’s sake! No, you don’t need a freaking antibiotic.

Now, it’s not too difficult to imagine getting pissed off when during a course of a week, you meet a myriad of patients who’re making a big fuss out of seemingly small matters, or are in ill health due to their own actions. Yes, you’re supposed to put yourself in their shoes, but it isn’t easy doing so day in, and day out. The temptation to slap someone silly is quite a huge one, to be honest. And I do admit to being rather judgemental at times, although I try my best to suppress such thoughts.

Which is why I have respect for a few of the GPs I’m attached with. They may not think that a presentation is entirely genuine, they may know that Patient X is just after a sick note, but they never let such instances cloud their judgement and during consultations, they’re all ears. As for risk-taking behaviour, it’s awfully difficult to change someone’s long-held attitudes. It’s been proven that only adverse life events (e.g. a heart attack) have an immediate effect on someone changing his/her lifestyle e.g. giving up smoking. Guess we’re all like that to a certain degree. Bila dah kena, baru nak insaf.

We’re all feel rather down at one point or another, and it’s quite unfair to assume that everyone has similarly strong coping mechanisms. Interesting piece I got off my workbook :


Imre Loeffler ( a surgeon, essayist and wit) says that the WHO’s famous definition of health as ‘complete physical, psychological and social wellbeing’ is achieved only at the point of simultaneous orgasm, leaving most of us definitely unhealthy and diseased.


So should we be giving out prescriptions for sex? Hahaha, that’ll be the day… highly unlikely though. Especially when I see 15 year old kids who can’t even take care of their hair come in with a little baby.

I know some of my friends complain about how boring GP attachments can be, but I’ve found it to be otherwise. Yes, you get old folks complaining about being depressed and wanting to come in for nothing more than a chat, but someone’s got to do it right? And as clichéd as it may be, yes it does make a difference despite the temptation to believe that it’s a waste of your time. After all, at the end of the day, medicine is all about making people feel better about themselves.