4 Weeks into Anatomical Pathology

I have not been studying so hard since medical school - need to brush up on general anatomy at the very least and study on cut up techniques and procedures.


I have not felt so junior/ignorance since third year medical school/clinical year - apart from knowing that I am not colour blind, looking at slides to me just means looking at meaningless colourful pictures with dots while others start babbling some alien languages

I start work at 7:30am every day willingly and stay back until 6pm everyday but do not feel terrible about it - I must be crazy liao


When the siao reg said I need to speed up when cutting because we still have many other specimens to go through - Instead of becoming anxious and scared, I choose to remind myself  my other reg who once told me to "keep calm", and the other reg who said "Don't try to live up to unrealistic expectation and allow others to rush you through a specimen because you got to know what you are doing before you get comfortable. You want to be able to sleep at night after cutting specimens."


I am also thankful to my siao reg. It's because of her, I learnt more in a short period of time. Sometimes I need stress to push me to do better.


As I left work one day feeling stressed out and useless, I saw a doctor at the car park, presumably a registrar of some sort, picking up her phone and asking about the details of patient who was being referred to her, using the wall as the vertical table and starting to write down stuff. I smiled and thought to myself, my day isn't that bad afterall.  

First Day at Work

I walked into the hospital WITHOUT my peach colour stethoscope hanging around my neck, my pen torch clipped on my lanyard, and my tendon hammer hidden in one of my pockets. And no pager. That felt awesome.


The head of department gave me a tour in the lab and introduced me to the staff, mostly scientists and technicians. First time in my life, I am going to work with non nurses. I was introduced as the "new new registrar"as I am fresh and I have zero experience in pathology. I think it would have been better if I was introduced as the "intern".


What's better? I have my own desk and microscope. Although technically, the desk belongs to the registrar who is currently on maternity leave. But thanks to her and her husband, I was offered this rotation and escaped orthopaedic :D (Gosh, I can't imagine myself holding a fat leg in ortho surgery...I will definitely faint from having postural hypotension)


Oh guess what's best? It's when the PA says "MET call...Ward xx..Bed xx...xx unit".
That was the moment! The moment that I was waiting for...
I think I am going to be excited about this for at least a week :D


Basically, I have just been tagging along the registrar and watching cut ups mainly. I joined the surgical pathology meeting and the slides showing sessions. I was quite amused when I saw helicobacter pylori under the microscope. Other than that, I have no idea what they were talking about... It will take time for things to make sense.


I had lunch, I actually sat down to have lunch for a whole 45 min. The reg managed to finish cutting up all the specimens and we left work on time at 5pm.


There will be a lot of after hour and weekend study, otherwise there is no way to pass the exams. I know I have to do this. If pathology can't interest me, nothing in medicine will.