The battle begins... Round 1...

As I go through all my postings, I continue to scout around and ponder over what specialty I may wanna specialize in (although seriously, i should be pondering whether I'll pass my MBBS first...). The 1st battle in my mind... Surgery or Medicine...

After doing orthopaedics surgery for 1 week, I think the winner for round 1 has emerged! haha! It has to be Medicine!!

First day in the clinic...
A patient came in with a lump in his leg. MRI showed a nerve sheath tumour. He needed a biopsy to ascertain the nature of the tumour... whether it's benign or malignant. My tutor did a true-cut biopsy in the treatment room for him. Description about the procedure was brief. Throughout the procedure, the patient was really nervous and anxious about what's going to happen, whether there's gonna be a lot of pain... basically extremely apprehensive about what he's about to go through. Still no explanation. He did not even explain that he was injecting local anaesthesia. Half the time, the patient was raising his head up to see what the doctor's doing to his leg!

The doctor did the procedure effortlessly and efficiently of course! but what did the patient feel? So what if the procedure took less than 5 minutes to complete? So what if the patient didn't feel much pain except for that sudden needle prick for the LA? So what if the patient sort-of knew that "oh... what he did will tell me if i got cancer..." He was so uncomfortable and afraid for that 5 minutes of his life!

At Trauma round...
A patient had a habitual dislocation of the patella after internal fixation of a previous distal femur and tibial fracture. He came in and sat in front while the surgeons sat around the seminar room to discuss his problem and how they would like to treat him.

During the discussion, the patient was made to do this n that... flex the knee, extend the knee, flex the knee again... all the time with 5 pairs of eyes from the doctors and 8 pairs of eyes from medical students fixed on him. gosh... he must feel like he's a resident in the zoo or something. then the registrar was made to determine the Q angle which required him to use a marker to draw on the patient's legs. So the patient was supposed to go home in berms with all these ugly markings on his legs (he wasn't an inpatient)?!?!

hated the way the discussion was made... they discussed how they're gonna realign the patella and make sure it doesn't come out whenever he moves his knee joint. they discussed cutting this ligament, relaxing this ligament, putting in a plastic patella, etc. wah... it sounded like they were discussing how to build a robot lor!

patients are humans!! not lil dolls that has a broken arm or leg! Why why why? why do so many surgeons fail to show me that they care? why do they all have to put on this air of superiority in them?

If i were to become a trainee in any discipline, i'll need to be able to respect and yearn to emulate my seniors and superiors. I definitely admire them for their competency in surgical skills and their efficiency at solving the patient's physical problems. but how can i respect them if i feel disgusted at some of their attitude towards patients? how can i yearn to be like them when i think it's so wrong?