Day 4 @ Neurology Ward

Today we were attached to a very zai pharmacist who walks at the speed of light. Actually it was a very interesting day for we saw a lot of discharge cases, besides the usual studying of case notes of migraine and stroke patients, concussion cases. Esp so was this stroke case of an unknown aspirin allergy so they had to give IV steroid and piriton. (wonder if my blog has suddenly changed into some pharmacy journal and I’m losing readers here. Well, just pretend u know okie.)

Her discharge cases were interesting, she handled this difficult old man who kept saying she thinks he’s stupid. But she just talks on and on, repacks his medicine (he forgot he was protesting to it), very professionally. Standard! Then we saw her counsel in hokkien… counsel in malay… I dun think I’ll every reach that mark man.. the epitome of successfulness. Then we did a whole run thru on migraine and stroke… messy man..

After lunch we had the very-golden-opportunity to go on a Grand Round. This was amazing; it happens weekly where a counsel of doctors (senior) walk ard the wards and discuss patient cases. One doc would present the patient history & labs, the rest would qn wt could b done / medicines given / treatment / hypothesis of ailment.. sooo interesting n cool.. they stand in a grp, n hv their mini conference.. followed by an entourage of 20+ medical students, 5 pharmacists, the head nurses and dunno who else. So we scrambled after this troupe to hear about 5 patient cases.. they qn the drug therapy.. I see the awesome responsibility tt we play, for we can influence the drug choices. Goodness. Faint.

Day 5 @ Enteral Nutrition (NG tube)

Today a whole bunch of us were at DIS the whole day, and did a great cooperative task gg indepth on this… its quite wonderful, cos we haven’t touched this topic b4. everyone knows nuts abt it. haha. It’s a very care-n-share kind of situation, where there was the ‘research team’ proudly led by hysterical pharm sisters. And the ‘walk about team’ who went to retail & IP to chk-it-out. Haha. Then we had a dictation session where the 2 grp just exchange info person by person n we scribble.. So cute. I think learning shld b in this way.. where info gets sieved out n we dictate to each other the impt parts.. tho its v brain shacking, I did enjoy today.

Had this herby soup for dinner. Two herby soups. Not bad. I need the energy man, need it. week one is over!!!

my first 3 days at ttsh (haha this sounds so 'diary-entry')

my first day was quite a shocker.. went to the geriatrics ward, had to dig our memory for antidepressants; NSAIDs, antibiotics; CMI drugs.. pharmacology really comes alive here. preceptor for the day wasnt entirely friendly; when we got the dosage form wrong she just threw us a disgusted look. we gulp. we ask her in small-voice whats the answer.. we felt so pathetic. then later i realised, its just her. she's stern, cold, aloof. the strike-fear-in-the-hearts-of-many kind. but hold her in awe la.

was super shag after running ard the geriatric ward.. went to celeb smell bday at this chinese place. but smell was v touched i think.. his best fwen APPLE STRUDEL & APPLE PIE & me & gang were there. haha.

saw huiyu & we pharm gals screamed. haha. HYPER. actually we wanted to eat at Surf & Turf, we went in, sat down, the menu was awful, price was awful, smell pulled a stunt & called his fwen blaming him tt we got the restaurant wrong. hey it was convincing! then we went to eat at the chinese place. i got my maggi-mee-looking noodles when everyone else finished theirs. i was drunk & noisy. the noodles were so slippery i couldnt pick them up, & i was so tired i didnt wanna bother anymore. uuuhhh.

day 2 were had a great time with a very lively preceptor at the psychiatric ward.. dealt mainly with antidepressants & 6 IMRs. we even saw a discharge case.. our preceptor is soooooo nice... she made our day, really. mingli said she felt faint cos we were standing for v long, we grabbed her a chair & she went all pale & started swaying.. scared. i was prep to catch her already. then our pharmacists came over, concerned, this v fwenly doc came to poor girl, made jokes & measured bp.. the nurse also come flapping over w juice & milo... nice env indeed! we went for the allergy talk by a charming doc. went to see the ICU, a sunny bright place with indiv terminals. then we were told to go back by ourselves & got lost at B1... walked ard & ended up at the morgue. then the carpark. the funny thing is tt there were 8 of us. all lost. walk everywhere. faint.

day 3 we went to the respiratory ward.. saw asthma & COPD cases, did alot of cross referencing w the BNF, DIH, MIMMS... flip here flip there flip everywhere... learnt TB and pneumonia. and antibiotics are back to haunt us again.... didnt even hv time to talk cok. the preceptor today was demanding, but was good, and she's nice too. mich calls her snuffleofegus. the sesame street elephant. so nice.

feet paining real bad. and its day3.. tired, but i enjoy it!

yest after touch a bunch (or horde) of us went to denise's house for housewarming poh-piah party. i made a poh piah that had too much filling = sandwich = failed sandwich = end up very messy eat with hands. lotsa good food, celeb SMELL and lixian bday. denise baked a apple-something cake which was sooooooo yummy eaten fresh out of the oven with melting icecream. oooooh. (oh i rem yeeng fav word was oooooooooh.) so cute that girl. miss her!!!

anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SMELLLLLLLL!!! lao-cok-cok.

anyway. we ate and ate and ate. and nuah-ed. and played charades. and i acted this "apple strussel slices". now, the funny thing with apples. disclose u this secret: apple strudel = drain!!!!!!!!! oh faints, that is soooooo gay. and yuncai (aka yingkai) calls himself Applez pieZ. now smell has to be apple something too. any suggestions? damn gay, my best fwens. ewwwwww.

anyway. this touch visit we had 4 new elderly... its weird not being able to visit Mr Pang. i think i still cant blog about him yet. i miss Mr Pang. and yet, we still hv our existing elderly to focus on. i think this is one thing about volunteering w the elderly - u hv to care and yet be emotionally detached. pls teach me how to. pls.

the do-summary-for-this-visit-arrow:

Group 3 went to Mdm Lim’s place; our new elderly. (we can call her Ah Muaeh if I am not wrong). We were briefed that she has hairline cracks on her spine, which is giving her a lot of pain, and that she is pessimistic about her condition. Somewhat prepared, we were surprised to find her chatty. Even though it was complaining about the pain she has in her back and her stomach giving her trouble and how she cannot eat anything, its better than meeting with silence / sullenness, so we just sympathized along with her. Think we managed to comfort her pretty well, especially Jessie!!! *salute* Our round of introduction was really cute with Yuncai being AhCai and KoonHong being AhHong-later-renamed-AhBeng.

She has stopped taking her medication (5 or so different kinds for her bone problem & pain & bowel motility problem) because she complains of nausea and gastrointestinal discomfort. However, this has made her GI condition worse, or so I suspect; especially today, she was hugging her tummy in pain. She would not eat lunch today she said, as she has no appetite. Despite us trying to persuade her to take her medication, she will not comply, but she’s due for a review at TTSH in 10 days time so perhaps her complaint about the side-effect / switch drug can be rectified. Apparently her grandson (or son) bought her another medication for pain which she took twice, then she said she stopped as it. I went home and checked it up, she should NOT be taking this drug as it is harsh on the gut, anyway she has been prescribed a more specific drug of the same family, so I hope to help her with that the next visit. Complicated drug regimen. Sigh. And then she started to cry saying that being sick with so many illnesses is difficult.. we just sympathized along. Then tried to divert her attention a bit.

Actually her medication is very expensive, total bill is $160; the bulk of it is this nasal spray calcitonin for bone recalcification which is $140. Hence we persuaded her to use the nasal spray so that the money spent will not go to waste. She is really reluctant to take her medication so we kinda tricked her by saying there’s no side effects as it goes into the nose, not the mouth. (but I checked; there is no side effects. Phew). So we primed the spray and taught her how to use it; once every morning, one nostril only, one spray. The spray is good for only 16 doses, so at our next visit we MUST help her prime the 2nd spray. Then she got upset and started to cry again for she said she felt useless that she don’t know how to use the medicine. We comforted her by saying that we ourselves need to read instructions and showed her that the drug insert is very full-of-words so its hard to understand anyway (although the other side was in French or something).

I do think that we can help to lift her spirits. To provide a listening ear when she wants to complain, to give her the sympathy that she needs. I am nervous about her and her drugs; shit I better go read up again. She is going to be quite dependant on us; it was hard to say goodbye, so we can really help by being her emotional support and source of encouragement.

Then my group went downstairs where Mr Tan was sitting. Today he was quite chatty after the initial hi-have-u-eaten-what-did-you-eat and talking about polling. He said that lixian’s pink shoe is not nice. Haha! But he refused to say my white shoe is nice; although he didn’t say it was ugly. (make your own conclusions). And he giggled when lixian called me “pai lang”. Haha! He was carrying a notebook and when I asked him what is it, he said “mi kiah” (some thing). The usual cryptic answer, haha. But later on, when probed he showed it to us; he was recording 4D winning numbers in it. His handwriting is nice. His CHINESE handwriting is nice. He also said that his door number came out 4 times. So today he was quite chatty, because there wasn’t a tv around.

So we spent an hour with him watching the rain. BIG rain. He said he likes to sit downstairs to watch people walk by. He said he knows how to ride a bicycle. He said he doesn’t like cats cos they are dirty, and likes dogs instead. He used to have a dog!!! He demonstrated how big it was (half of huishan’s size). I dunno if he’s pulling my leg. Anyway, we made him giggle quite a bit again. Cos there was this tom-cat hanging around the lift as an old lady brought a mary-cat into the lift with her (the old lady spoke hokkien to the cat. Or rather shouted at it to get into the lift). So the tom-cat was left pining away downstairs and Mr Tan was quite amused. Even more so amused when I said I was a fish and asked the cat to come over. Anyway that’s besides the point.

Lixian asked him about his past job; he was a lorry driver from age 55-70. so I said, in English, 15 years. And he repeated after me, “yes, 15 years”. We were shocked and asked him what languages he can speak – Hokkien, Mandarin, Malay and ENGLISH!!! Wanna faint Mr Tan can speak English. But he is most fluent in Hokkien and prefers to converse in it. He knows malay as he used to have a company that had to deal with malay customers. So actually he is quite a linguist.. but then very-much-later-on one smell asked him again if he can speak English he says he cant. I think Mr Tan became shy when 3 loads of us jumped out of the lift in front of him, so he reverted to his one-word cryptic answers again..

After that my group ended off at Ah Por’s house, where a massage parlor was going on amidst a cleanup operation. Lijie and I threw away rotten bananas. Then the plastic bag containing Chinese fungus broke. And there was little fungus growing on the big fungus. So we threw everything away. THE END.

ahhhh. busy. my holidays are ending!!! (bet i'm the rare nus student who is actually able to say this sentence) i better blog about it before it really ends. cos next wk (play mournful violin music here) my preceptorship at ttsh starts. ok la, not really mournful but it just spells the end of the hols... so to summarize my hols so far... my LAST 3 MONTH HOL OF MY LIFE UNLESS I GET SACKED OR SMTH..

wed-thu : pharm-sisters and chemistry-cousin outing to zouk the fire-hazard (this title raises goosebumps)

• wed 7pm: put down pens for Pharmacotherapy
• wed 7.30pm: excitement sinks in. exams are over. yay!!! delirious. (xQ went a bit nutty)
• wed 8pm: xq huirei lijie me in my room in kwok looking at map
• wed 9pm: xq huirei lijie me in orchard taka eating dinner & getting shooed away rudely by cleaning aunty
• wed 10pm: xq huirei lijie me stoning in orchard having a drink. passing time. another rude service. haiyooooo.
• wed 11pm: xq huirei lijie me arrive at ZOUK!!! we met smell!!! we met the handsome alvin!!! faints.
• wed 11+ pm: xq huirei lijie me got lost in Velvet Underground. we eyed the waiter suspiciously (seemed to b plaqued by rude service that night)
• wed 11+ pm: got pulled by alvin to get our drinks. FINALLY chloe manages to order. it is CHAOTIC to order cos u are like squashed up the bar & there's no queue so u just try to catch someone's eye. tempted to go on the bartop. i will catch many ppl's eye.
• thu 12+ am: xq huirei lijie me being dancing queens
• thu 12+ am: they are playing sucky music like Ghost Busters. faint.
• thu 1+ am: we went back. toooooooooo crowded. in the words of xQ: Zouk is a fire hazard. lijie & i commented we banged into a sweaty guy. we think its the SAME sweaty guy. faint.
• thu 2-4am: talking old times. we were talking abt Fright Night when we were freshies and we scared ourselves. haha. silly. we 4 started screaming. hahhaha.

so nice to hv Girl's Night Out. so totally chill man!!! the rest of the thu was spent packing up kwok.. spending the rest of the evening enjoying my last moments in my kwok room. FAINT.

Fri i went to bugis! tried on a million shoes, paid a 'virgin visit' to the new national lib, paid my homage to my Art Friends, and ate Tapas. now this Tapas thing is interesting. its this thing that the italians (or is it spanish? same la. they are fat and like to sleep) eat before they hv meals proper. its little cup-sized sweet desserts.. oh so delectable yummy yummy!

sat my nose dropped off.

sun i had fever, vomitting and lotsa ph calls.

mon i had ethelonter oc meeting. went swimming. whined alot. then went back to sch again for proj can meeting. and missed my despo housewives (only 15 mins left). whined even more.

tue i went for dearest mr pang's funeral service & watched The Wild - a cartoon about this koala bear who is sooooooooo cute; he gets pissed off with the zoo's merchandise of him tt talks & says "i am cuddly, i like you" haha. and i tried on another million shoes and another million dresses for the n-th time. at suntec.

wed i went to esplanade lib (why am i gg to lib when the past 3 weeks of my life i am living in the lib?) tries on 13 shirts in less than an hour and ate sushi which is absolutely flavoursome and got stuck in a bus 10. and i tried on only 2 pairs of shoes. shoe fantasy ending soon.

thu (which is today) i am gg out for bfast so i better sleep if not i'll b yawny. then i'm gg for GAW mtg then my 4th MC outing yay!

great summary? my hols are packed and blissful. next wk.... no more.. sob... fweeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the funny thing about lecturers - u tend to remember the caustic ones. and the lousy ones.

THE CAUSTIC LECTURER:
Dear Students of Sc1101e
Thank you once again for making my stint teaching Sc1101e enjoyable, especially with your wonderful exam answers.
Ya, right: "...according to Marx Weber..."
I wish you all the best, and I hope I don't ever see you in Sc1101e again.

Dr.P.


THE LOUSY LECTURER:
(ok, u always say ur lecturer is lousy. but. this one is REALLY lousy. if u visit ur pharm fwens blog and BOTH Bitch aBout Bong (BBB) then u know there's smth wrong. hey, that rhymes.)

ok here i go plagarizing my fwen huirei's and xQ's blog. not tt i DUN hv original words to bitch abt bong, but i am just not BONGthering. i mean bothering.

FROM HUIREI:

His incoherent lecture notes are full of mistakes (grammatical, calculations and even concepts). He teaches us too much, structures notes in a funny way ("to stimulate our thinking") and his jokes are not funny. Okay, he is teaching for the first time, thus there should be more tolerance for his mistakes, but still, its getting harder and harder to do so as the exams nears..


He likes to post things as shown below. Things that i used to think of as thoughtful, but now they just irked me so:

"As I mentioned, I thought of designing the NMR lectures in a way that I shall lead you to probe the topics deeper and deeper, and hence I introduce you to these concepts."

"again, this set of note takes you all go deeper down in appreciating what is happening to the nuclei. It's more like even if you know how to drive a car, then you might wish to know that happen when you press the pedal (accelerator), what happens to the engine, and when you press the brake, what happen to it? How how the fuel combustion lead to movement of car etc."

N alongside with the numerous corrections to his tutorials and lectures:"Thanks for pointing out these typo errors out to me:1. blah blah2. blah blahSorry for the typo errors. Please feel free to point these out.(And keep your eyes on this thread, as more typo errors might be discovered... :P )"

"Opps... This Dr. Bong always make error... :P OK, the structure given during the tutorial for question27(Pavia's Chapter 3) is drawn wrongly.It should be HCC-CO-OCH2CH3, in which the HCC is an alkyne group. "

N more tat i didn post up. Imagine firstly, being shocked by the addition of a learning objective, then having to read his crappy nonsense (grr, just hate his smileys), then, having to correct numerous mistakes in our tutorials and lectures. I think any saint would lose his patience, like i did.

FROM XQ:

+bong bong bong+Im quite fed up with this lecturer. EVERY lecture, there will be some mistakes. EVERY. And even after he made corrections and upload the new slides, there will still be MORE mistakes surfacing. Imagine our agony - we had to go home and reprint and rewrite after his lect.AND NOW, even when all the lectures are over, he started posting things on the forum to inform us of the MANY mistakes he made in his tut. I cant take it anymore. The exams are just around the corner and he is doing this to us?? Im speechless.

moving out of kwok... i think i didnt bring much stuff in this time round.. clearing up wasnt as nightmarish as prev years.. mayb cos the room 711 at kwok wasnt as big as my prev ones at pgp. i so enjoy staying in kwok; its so much more exclusive, better location, and u dun feel like u're living in india/china/vietnam.

albeit for this kwok BIRD that sings in a hysterical high-pitch cheepcheep at 7.30am, i am gg to miss kwok. of course the company... best fwen drain far far away in ext.. lijie just 3 doors down, jooch & smell on 3rd floor. my world of fwens lives in kwok. srh & dennis tt i occasionally bang into. and my hi-bye senior that i met everyday walking in the opposite direction from me. haha.

well then, papa came to pick me up and nagged at my 10 bags as usual. he said when he stay hostel he only had one bag. ya right. parents always like to bluff us. haha.

bag 1: big bag of clothes and files and SHEEP.
bag 2: bigger bag of clothes and more files (really alot). dunno why i bring so many clothes. i got 5 sweaters. no, singapore no winter.
bag 3: printer.
bag 4: basket of toiletries.
bag 5: shoes. i brought 6 pairs. i only hv one pair of feet tho.

bag 6: laptop bag. with laptop inside. duh.
bag 7: fragile stuff bag - yeeng's cup, flowers, potpourri..
bag 8: pillow. so big it occupies one big bag.
bag 9: table lamp + duvet.
bag 10: pharmacotherapy. such a thick textbk that i put in 'isolation' bag.