The last few days have been pretty good, getting into doing things a little more. I have admitted a few patients, done a few canulas and even written a referral letter to Rockhampton for a Royal Flying Doctors extraction of a patient. It feels pretty good to know what goes on enough to do something that is a little bit useful. Nothing is really difficult, and it’s definitely not anything someone else couldn’t do, but whatever. This will probably be one of those things that you look back and think, strange that I was excited about such small repetitive items of routine. Future me will think it’s dumb, but current me thinks it’s cool that things are actually starting.
For the first time, I put a scalpel to someone’s skin today, and cut them. It was actually really cool, I did the local, excision and dressing… did everything. Some people might not think this is a big deal, but there was a time when I thought I shouldn’t do medicine because I couldn’t handle the blood and cutting someone. After wound care, a surgical observership in first year and seeing quite a few excisions out here, I am happy to charge forward into it. I think I did a good job too, which is really good. I don’t think I will have to think back to “that first time”. I might mess things up in the future for sure, but at least that first cut was straight and smooth.
I am in my new home, which feels great, and I am looking forward to getting everything set up. I’m here for a little bit this weekend, and then I am headed back to the bush for another few weeks! I won’t be setting everything up, because I won’t be needing it for another month, but at least it’s all here. It feels good to have a place where you know it’s your home. I have been wandering for a while now… Just a little more wandering and I can be home again.
When I pick up things and get it kinda set up I’ll snap a few photos
Believe it or not, at the last minute I decided to hop on a Greyhound bus, ride 16 hours through the outback over night and arrive back in Brisbane this weekend. I am here for a couple reasons, including “Sports Day” which is the biggest cross-class get together of the year. That’s on Friday, but today is the day that we actually get keys to our apartment. So I am going to rent a car, grab my scrubs from storage, and then cruise up to the Sunny Coast to get keys and check out the new apartment. I will also be able to move my stuff out of storage, which will save me the storage fee, which was pretty close to the cost of the bus!
Here I am, sitting here in the middle of the outback, watching the start of the Vancouver Olympics. I see the Canadiana on the TV, but when I look outside it’s a completely different vista. I went for a walk today, just to get out of the house. I walked for about 10 minutes north of where I’m staying, and was already out of town. The town I’m in is maybe a kilometer across. The crazy thing is that there were kangaroos just chilling in the grass out there. It just highlights how different my experience is here today than it would be if I lived in Canada still. Anyways, missing home big time today.
Today something happened that is hard to get used to. Someone used the phrase “because we’re doctors” to me. Directly to me. Now, usually when this happens I feel a real obligation to say, “Well, I’m still just a student.” But there was literally nobody else around, and the speaker knew fully that I am a student. It felt a bit odd, but I suppose it will be true eventually.
So the first week of rural is over, and it was a pretty neat experience. As I mentioned earlier that on Monday we spent some time excising and chatting. Tuesday and Wednesday were a mix of hospital and clinic (which Aussies call “surgery”, very confusing). Thursday and Friday were spent in a smaller town 1.5 hours from here called Alpha. I guess there’s a new mine getting set up in Alpha for coal or coal seam gas (nobody has told me for sure) and so the town is set to grow. The hospital there reminded me of the old hopsital in Olds, where I was born… it was ll wooden walls and the age was about the same. The only difference was that the hallways were half open on one side.
Getting back up to speed with med, if only in the sense that I am reading about it again. This town is pretty fun, and it definitely feels small, as I am starting to see people I know already, only having been here for a few days. Looking forward to getting to know it better.
I am in Barcaldine, Qld, and it seems like it’s going to be great. The town is tiny, as predicted and the people are very friendly. It has rained nearly 140 mm over the last 36 hours, and the town is officially shut off from the outside by the police. There is water covering the roads out of here. The town was on the state news last night for the rain and flooding. The humidity here is sickening and condensing on everything in sight. The table top is wet. My laptop is wet too. I hope it’s ok. I think the air conditioner is designed to pump water vapour into the house because it is usually so dry out here.
I don’t have internet here, I am currently borrowing from the student who is also here who has a wireless modem. The school handed out modems to other students who they said had no internet, but said I would have it. I don’t want to use it too much but I am happy to at least have a little bit of a link with the world, since my cell phone doesn’t work here. I have made some changes that will let it work again in a little bit, but those are wheels that take a while to turn. (I need to change mobile carriers)
I had my first half day today with my preceptor, who seems like he’s going to be great. All we did was cut out skin cancers (4) and talk about emergency procedures and food in Canada (two separate things). It seems like it’s going to be great. I really need to get up to speed on things though. I know the world doesn’t revolve around me, and that means that not everyone knows this is the first day of my first rotation and I am barely out of second year. So when someone expects more than I have ever done before I want to be ready.
So, it has been a long time since I have updated here, and a lot of things have happened. I arrived here, of course, and had to find a place to live. I have now succeeded in finding the place, but Shaun and I have to wait till Feb 18 to get it. That’s a bit of a stress because Shaun (my future housemate) needed to have a place for the beginning of this week. As it turns out he was able to stay with some friends for the time being and will make the move in a few weeks. The place looks great to me and it fits a lot of my hopes. I didn’t know what kind of place we would be in, with me initially thinking that we would look for an old house in the hills. I had imagined a place in the bush that was a little isolated and cheap because of it. I looked all around and there were some good options. But then we kept adding wants to the list, like being close to the urban center and being closer to the coast. We have come so far, and have a chance to live near the water, and we wanted to take advantage of that. So it turned out that an apartment fit our needs better.
I met with the owner, which was great, as often you are only able to meet the real estate agent in this country. Things look like they will work out well.
Then I had to move all my stuff out of my house and into a storage locker, because I was headed on my rural medicine rotation. I have done that now, and headed up to Rockhampton, for orientation. Today is the end of the orientation, and over the weekend, I will travel to a small town called Barcaldine. It is in the middle of Queensland and seems like it’s going to be great. Whatever happens out there, I think it will give me a good taste of what is going on in the far corners of this country. Phone and internet have been spotty this week, as I am out of my home zone, there is very little coverage. I’m hoping to change carriers to fix that problem.
This week has been filled with lectures and practical sessions to try equip us as best as possible to handle some of the things we are going to see and do. We have done sessions on xray, injection, IV, intraosseous infusion, casting, CPR and many more. It’s been a really good all around review and a good way to start the year. I am looking forward to the weeks to come.
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