Our (proper) first day
After tracking down our departments last night, we came in for the early start of 7:30am just like we'd been told- thank goodness for jetlag eh?! We were just in time for a teaching session aimed at the paediatric interns but sitting at the back meant that we didn't really manage to hear much. Things got even worse when the senior team piled in to sit in front of the interns for handover, and we ended up zoning out for a lot of it.
Still, we got a chance to introduce ourselves to everyone, and team up with some friendly interns. Maria is going to be doing the neonatal stuff for the first two weeks and I'll be doing general paeds, then we'll switch. The interns are kind of like FY1/2s in England, and I joined one of them as he ran an intial ward round by himself, which was a nice familiar way to kick things off. The registrars don't do a proper ward round and only come in later to review the interns' decisions, and give an opinion of any of the more complex cases, so things didn't move particularly quickly. The system seems to work pretty well though, and meant I could get a bit more involved and ask more questions than you sometimes can at home when there's a big crowd of you trailing around behind a consultant.
I can't take any pictures on the wards for obvious reasons, but my first impressions are that while the building itself is a little shabby, the equipment (even stuff like the O2 by each bed) is still in good shape, and the actual quality of medicine here is good. There was plenty of the same paediatric conditions we see in the UK: bronchiolitis, pneumonia, meningitis etc. but also some more unusual cases like a badly infected VP shunt, dengue fever, and an eye infection exacerbated by the mother rubbing breast milk in her child's eyes as a folk remedy.
We all managed to meet up for lunch in the hospital cafeteria, which is pretty decent, before exploring the hospital a little more, to try and get to grips with where everything was and how it connects up.That felt like more than enough work for our first day, expecially given that by then, most of the interns were winding down before their shifts finished at four, so we decided to head home.
Hopefully tomorrow there'll be a few more practical skills to needed, as my intern has promised to help me become confident doing bloods and cannulas on children (Fijian medical students are all expected to do practical skills on children as well as adults), though I did draw the line when he offered me an LP!
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| A whole three rows back from the action |
I can't take any pictures on the wards for obvious reasons, but my first impressions are that while the building itself is a little shabby, the equipment (even stuff like the O2 by each bed) is still in good shape, and the actual quality of medicine here is good. There was plenty of the same paediatric conditions we see in the UK: bronchiolitis, pneumonia, meningitis etc. but also some more unusual cases like a badly infected VP shunt, dengue fever, and an eye infection exacerbated by the mother rubbing breast milk in her child's eyes as a folk remedy.
We all managed to meet up for lunch in the hospital cafeteria, which is pretty decent, before exploring the hospital a little more, to try and get to grips with where everything was and how it connects up.That felt like more than enough work for our first day, expecially given that by then, most of the interns were winding down before their shifts finished at four, so we decided to head home.
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| From one of the hospital balconies |
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| Our street |
Hopefully tomorrow there'll be a few more practical skills to needed, as my intern has promised to help me become confident doing bloods and cannulas on children (Fijian medical students are all expected to do practical skills on children as well as adults), though I did draw the line when he offered me an LP!
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