Here's another post I wrote quite some time ago:
Yesterday was my first on-call in 6C (neonatal ward). Being oncall in 6A and 6C is 2 different things.
In 6A, there will be a variety of cases – usually dengue, AGE (acute gastroenteritis – basically vomiting and diarrhoea), pneumonia, asthma and rarely something other than the one’s I mentioned. Being on-call basically means clerking the new cases and if there are dengue cases, then blood taking every 4 or 6 hours depending on how severe their disease is.
In 6C, 90% of the cases are NNJ (neonatal jaundice), 8% will be ‘risk of MAS (meconium aspiration syndrome), ‘premature baby for observation’, ‘macrosomic (big) baby for observation’ etc. NNJ is actually a simple case to clerk – all we have to do is fill up a form. Examination of the baby is also quite simple. The only thing is when the NNJ is a bit more severe – then there is 4 hourly blood taking (for very severe NNJ, we might have to resort to exchange transfusion – changing the baby’s blood). Besides that, every morning, we have to repeat the blood test for ALL NNJ babies (which can some up to more than 20). The person on-call must finish all blood taking before 7-7.30 am.
Just to clarify things – it is very hard to take blood from babies who are below 1 month old. It is even worse if they are premature. The vein is tiny and they bruise so easily! In babies, we use the smallest needle available and even that seems huge compared to their hands.
When I first started work, I really, really couldn’t manage to take blood from the babies. Out of 10 times, I would suceed maybe once or twice. Now, I have improved a little (A LITTLE) but then when I see a baby who’s hand is full of bruises and swollen, I usually just try once and then pass it on to another person to take the blood. I hope that in time I would be better and can take all the blood myself.
So, anyway, I was oncall in 6C yesterday. I had 10 admissions. According to a friend of mine, it is a very small number for a Saturday. When she was oncall on Saturday last time, she had 30 admissions! I wonder where all the patients were placed – the ward isn’t even that big! Anyway, all my admissions were before the night rounds, so it wasn’t too bad. I managed to sleep for about 2.5 hours.
Since my blood taking skills are next to none and there were about 20 bloods to take, I decided to start early – at about 4am. I set my alarm at 4, but then snoozed until about 4.15. I tried my best, but then only managed to finish the blood taking with the help of some of the nurses and another friend. But then we finished by about 7am which is not too bad.
Overall, not too bad a call, compared to my call in 6A the other day.
(Am I boring you with my writings about work? I can’t seem to think of anything else to say – after all, work is the only thing I do nowadays besides the occasional eating out with friends. Will try to blog about other topics next time – no promises though, :P)
25.01.09
Yesterday was my first on-call in 6C (neonatal ward). Being oncall in 6A and 6C is 2 different things.
In 6A, there will be a variety of cases – usually dengue, AGE (acute gastroenteritis – basically vomiting and diarrhoea), pneumonia, asthma and rarely something other than the one’s I mentioned. Being on-call basically means clerking the new cases and if there are dengue cases, then blood taking every 4 or 6 hours depending on how severe their disease is.
In 6C, 90% of the cases are NNJ (neonatal jaundice), 8% will be ‘risk of MAS (meconium aspiration syndrome), ‘premature baby for observation’, ‘macrosomic (big) baby for observation’ etc. NNJ is actually a simple case to clerk – all we have to do is fill up a form. Examination of the baby is also quite simple. The only thing is when the NNJ is a bit more severe – then there is 4 hourly blood taking (for very severe NNJ, we might have to resort to exchange transfusion – changing the baby’s blood). Besides that, every morning, we have to repeat the blood test for ALL NNJ babies (which can some up to more than 20). The person on-call must finish all blood taking before 7-7.30 am.
Just to clarify things – it is very hard to take blood from babies who are below 1 month old. It is even worse if they are premature. The vein is tiny and they bruise so easily! In babies, we use the smallest needle available and even that seems huge compared to their hands.
When I first started work, I really, really couldn’t manage to take blood from the babies. Out of 10 times, I would suceed maybe once or twice. Now, I have improved a little (A LITTLE) but then when I see a baby who’s hand is full of bruises and swollen, I usually just try once and then pass it on to another person to take the blood. I hope that in time I would be better and can take all the blood myself.
So, anyway, I was oncall in 6C yesterday. I had 10 admissions. According to a friend of mine, it is a very small number for a Saturday. When she was oncall on Saturday last time, she had 30 admissions! I wonder where all the patients were placed – the ward isn’t even that big! Anyway, all my admissions were before the night rounds, so it wasn’t too bad. I managed to sleep for about 2.5 hours.
Since my blood taking skills are next to none and there were about 20 bloods to take, I decided to start early – at about 4am. I set my alarm at 4, but then snoozed until about 4.15. I tried my best, but then only managed to finish the blood taking with the help of some of the nurses and another friend. But then we finished by about 7am which is not too bad.
Overall, not too bad a call, compared to my call in 6A the other day.
(Am I boring you with my writings about work? I can’t seem to think of anything else to say – after all, work is the only thing I do nowadays besides the occasional eating out with friends. Will try to blog about other topics next time – no promises though, :P)
25.01.09
2 comments:
Nice.. Dr. Sharini now, huh?
hey there Sharini,
ur posts are pretty helpful and insightful,esp. for those of us who are still stuck here waiting in the dark for the 'horror' to start back home ;p ur blog helps to shed a some light in on our little corner of the world here.. thanks for making the time! cheerios~
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