Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Holding my attention

Popped into theatre today for only the second time in my Urology rotation - watched a cystoscopy - basically a camera going into the bladder via the urethra, looking for cancer. The fluffy specks, fronds that swayed in the clear irrigation fluid pumped into the bladder were actually worrying - muscle invasive tumour. A 5-year survival rate of 50%.

Back on the ward, a patient became abusive and took a swing at me as I was examining his chest to detect the crackles and creps of aspiration pneumonia to determine if he should continue on IV antibiotics. The staff wonder: how do we assess the mental capacity of a patient whose family are not immediately contactable? A mini-mental score and a call to the Mental Health Liaison team are in order; plus I shouldn't feel too special about the whole thing; he has taken swings at all manner of staff from SHOs to junior nurses.

Jack and Gil are watching Hospital - a reality programme about NHS and dealing with different patients - too much work for me, I'm glad to come home to Heroes, to a nice cup of hot Milo with condensed milk(!) to the latest book waiting to be read, not to more work:-)

Saw tonight on the Apple trailers site that one of my first books growing up, is being made into a movie. Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, to me, was a tale about a troubled child who went to the land of the Wild Things to escape his ominous life at home. Seems that the movie is going along those lines - will be interesting to see how it pans out.

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