HAI = Hospital Acquired Infection

snot, originally uploaded by oyclubsnap2.

My First HAI! hahah im so happy/sad/delirious/febrile/joyful/morbid/delighted (etc etc) now! imagine that! MY FIRST HAI! whee!

was sniffling throughout the entire day and was feeling basically shitty. all i could think of was:

1: how to get home (to rest.. NOT to mug)
2: how not to give it to my patients
3: how i got it...

under category 3, came visions of TB patients, HepB/C patients, Acute pneumonia/lung abcess patients, HIV+ve patients, infective endocarditis patients, cellulitis patients (enough examples :) )and all the other strange and acute diarrhoea/ bloody stooled patients that we saw.

true, i probably have just the common cold and its probably spuriously associated with clinics - (other than the fact that i reach home exhausted everyday and my immunity levels are now crap)... but it led me to think: what if i DID come down with a HIGH fever? what if i started to cough BLOODY sputum or have unbearable NECK stiffness... would i freak out? would i begin to blame my profession? or blame the patients? or maybe just curse myself with not taking the adequate precautions whilst examining them. once again under category 3...

I saw some pretty disturbing sights as i was wandering around SGH. what with certain nurses removing bloodied IV plugs with their bare hands and certain doctors having intimate contact with patient's corneas via ungloved and unwashed hands. its a tradeoff i think, between comfort and health safety. we tend to think that the unexpected will never happen to us while we're well and only live to regret it when it happens. the nurse is now a running hepB/hiv hazard, and the doctor is in all probability happily dishing out major epidemics of adenovirus related episodes of keratoconjunctivitis.

time i think to take the safety precautions more seriously, lest we forget and slip into our deceptively safe comfort zones. consequences are dire.


In other news, and i feel i just have to blog about this... no offense to the party involved, i JUST FEEL THIS WAY DAMN IT:

i like to sleep, i like to sleep in, i like my sanity inducing sleep.

i seriously still see no obvious advantage of early mornings. the patients are supposed to be fresher in the morning and that may well be so.. BUT, we don't do that many cases in the morning do we?
so i come later, end later and.. tada! suprise suprise, ive found those nice patients who still talk during the afternoon, and ive covered the same darn ground. true. i don't get to see the preop patients. but is there a need to do this everyday? ive seen my share of thyroid lumps, hernias and breast lumps. so am i done? fini!... theres still tons of medicine and other surgery cases to be filled in.

lumps and bumps are costing me my sleep! *WRAAH BAAAAAHH PHOWWAAAA* the others aren't. and im NOT MISSING MUCH as i still come on saturdays (for the extra bonus points)

still, for your sake my friend, I WILL TRY TO MAKE IT BY 8 in the morning.

*grumbles.. (though not too loudly). heh*