well i’m not writing about mentor week per se, more of my experience with a paediatrician this morning during the caesarean. he was HILARIOUS. he saw me standing by the side and asked who are you? and i said i’m a medical student and he said, “MEDICAL STUDENT! which uni are you from?” and when i said monash, he said, “well you must be smart then..” haha. and then he started talking about how med students these days don’t learn anatomy and how the system had changed since his day. (he was a really nice old man) and then during the procedure, he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a model of the heart and he said, “that’s what they use to teach you guys these days. you say you know anatomy because you have model hearts. no no you don’t look at the real ones these days. you have MODELS.”
he then proceeded to tell me about how he decided to do paediatrics. he actually trained in obstetrics for 6 months and went to RCH to do a course on paeds resuscitation, found out that he liked it more, and swapped over. (of course, he made it sound so easy.. genius) and he was waxing lyrical about how paeds is superior to everything; just like what dr chew was doing about o&g. one thing that really struck me is their passion for their specialty and how everything else seems to pale in comparison :)
when the baby came out, he started quizzing me about paeds stuff like “what’s the most dangerous thing to a baby when it first enters the world” and “when babies become hypothermic, what happens?” (they become hypoglycaemic) etc. etc. and it was cool because all this time, he was resuscitating the baby and asked me about oxygen saturation of a baby (which is 20-30% only) because of the foetal haemoglobin and then how it breaks down once it enters the real world which is a reason why they become jaundiced and how passing the liquor early helps etc. etc. and after that he got dad over to cut the umbilical cord, which was extremely rubbery and he commented how it was like his mother-in-law’s steaks HAHAHAHA :) after which he wrapped the baby up really tight such that for some strange reason it become triangular-shaped like a samosa. :D HAHAHAHA .so funny :) i love paediatricians. they’re awesome :) :)
