X-Pen and Money Laundering
Time is flying by now, and I'm desparately trying to get my head around heading to Tonga in a few days and what I need to have done before then! Today we made one last trip into Suva town to pick up some sunblock and few bits of food to last us till we leave (we may also have treated ourselves to some cake while we were there). I also needed to exchange some FJD to Tongan Pa'anga (still not sure how you pronounce that) so I headed to the currency booth in the centre of the mall.
It was an unusual experience to say the least- not only did I have to provide my passport and proof of my flight out of Fiji, I also had to show them proof of my address here, and my occupation (luckily I'd brought my student ID!). It was way more intense a grilling than I'd experienced trying to change money anywhere else, and when I asked the woman at the counter, she said it was to try and counteract money laundering. I'm not sure if that's a big problem in Fiji, but it was a lot of hassle, and I was very glad when I finally received approval to make a transaction!
On the medical side, I think my elective experience peaked today when all the ward interns were called away to a simultaneous twin birth and single birth, with all three babies requiring full-blown resusitation. The ward was already incredibly overstretched, with two interns out of three off ill, so before she left, the last doctor shoved a baby into my arms and begged me to cannulate it, get some bloods sent off, and give the first dose of x-pen (or ben-pen as we'd call it at home!) that she'd just drawn up. Luckily for me, I managed to find a nurse to supervise me through it all and not only got the cannula in, bloods off, and gave the antibiotic dose that the intern had prescribed, I even filled out all the paperwork and notes with no help. Apart from the cannula there was nothing that difficult needed, but it felt pretty cool to be acting pretty much entirely solo for the first time ever!
We went to some of the medical student teaching this afternoon which also pretty fun- we felt horribly out of place and hadn't done any of the prep work that the other students had, but it was interesting to see their learning style. It's fairly close to PBL, where the students are given a workbook of questions based around a case to fill out beforehand, and then discuss their answers in a large group, run by a facilitator. Overall, the biggest difference I could spot in the FNU curriculum compared to Cambridge was that at the end of the clinical case the patient completely recovered- back at home he would have died, and then we'd have been shown pictures of his liver or something! Luckily the teaching was on metabolic syndrome and there wasn't anything too complicated, given that we hadn't prepared at all, but I was still terrified I'd be called on to answer one of the questions.
Two more clinical days left now, and Ellie's already started packing. It's going to be very strange to leave Fiji, but I am starting to get excited to see what's coming next....!
It was an unusual experience to say the least- not only did I have to provide my passport and proof of my flight out of Fiji, I also had to show them proof of my address here, and my occupation (luckily I'd brought my student ID!). It was way more intense a grilling than I'd experienced trying to change money anywhere else, and when I asked the woman at the counter, she said it was to try and counteract money laundering. I'm not sure if that's a big problem in Fiji, but it was a lot of hassle, and I was very glad when I finally received approval to make a transaction!
On the medical side, I think my elective experience peaked today when all the ward interns were called away to a simultaneous twin birth and single birth, with all three babies requiring full-blown resusitation. The ward was already incredibly overstretched, with two interns out of three off ill, so before she left, the last doctor shoved a baby into my arms and begged me to cannulate it, get some bloods sent off, and give the first dose of x-pen (or ben-pen as we'd call it at home!) that she'd just drawn up. Luckily for me, I managed to find a nurse to supervise me through it all and not only got the cannula in, bloods off, and gave the antibiotic dose that the intern had prescribed, I even filled out all the paperwork and notes with no help. Apart from the cannula there was nothing that difficult needed, but it felt pretty cool to be acting pretty much entirely solo for the first time ever!
We went to some of the medical student teaching this afternoon which also pretty fun- we felt horribly out of place and hadn't done any of the prep work that the other students had, but it was interesting to see their learning style. It's fairly close to PBL, where the students are given a workbook of questions based around a case to fill out beforehand, and then discuss their answers in a large group, run by a facilitator. Overall, the biggest difference I could spot in the FNU curriculum compared to Cambridge was that at the end of the clinical case the patient completely recovered- back at home he would have died, and then we'd have been shown pictures of his liver or something! Luckily the teaching was on metabolic syndrome and there wasn't anything too complicated, given that we hadn't prepared at all, but I was still terrified I'd be called on to answer one of the questions.
Two more clinical days left now, and Ellie's already started packing. It's going to be very strange to leave Fiji, but I am starting to get excited to see what's coming next....!
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