Monday, 26 July 1999

This morning started with group presentations during English class. We were to be assessed on our oral English skills by the tutor. I was a little miffed that one of our group members decided to change the entire course of presentation we had agreed on at the very last minute - while we were standing out in front of the class waiting to present! Anyway, I can live with this kind of irritation - I've experienced much much worse in my lifetime! ;) I guess nobody likes to have nasty surprises sprung on them but ah well, improvisation is the key word and if it was done with the best of intentions, who can fault the person, y'know. Besides, I always tell myself that my classmates are all still 'kiddos'. I'm so many years their senior, and they are just teenagers still, and then, I don't feel so bad if they had just done something totally silly / immature / irrational / irritating anymore. However, because I tend to be very serious about my work, I have had to remind myself several times when such situations occur and I start to get irritated. Yeah, I have high standards and expectations of myself and also of those around me. It is hard but I really have to continually adjust the way I view and treat my classmates. I'm learning! I'm learning! Gimme a break! :P

(Psst... I never professed to be an angel by the way and yeah, sometimes, I'm very much a monster! :P)

Again, I was surrounded by a thick haze of confusion during Bioscience lecture, where the topic for the entire week will be Cell Physiology. :P It's going to be a struggle to get the facts at my fingertips and already, I see an upward struggle for this. :P It would have helped if I had taken Chemistry at 'O' Levels too, but I had only taken Biology as my only science subject. *grumble* Oh well, diligence can conquer this little difficulty.

Now, clinical laboratory class was really interesting. We were shown how to lift and transfer patients. The tutor stressed to us that we must, must be very careful with our body posture and how we carry the weight to prevent backache and other musculoskeletal injuries. On a hunch, I asked her if she experienced backaches since she must have carried and transferred many patients in her nursing career. She mumbled a 'Yes'. It was also a 'yes' to my nosey question if the other tutors who were nurses for years also had backaches. Just goes to show that the theory may have good intentions but ah well, it's almost an occupational hazard that a large percentage of us will incur backaches in our career. :/ I guess if we're vigilant and practice the correct techniques and procedures, we'll be able to prevent serious injury but perhaps, it's pretty much a 'given' that backaches and nursing go hand-in-hand? :P

I'm larger than most of my classmates. I've always been larger since I was a toddler. Mom drank full-cream milk every day she was pregnant with me and I ended up having really large bones. :( Large bones in small, petite Asian culture and norm isn't fun and I grew up crying a lot because I wasn't as petite and 'cute' as everyone else. Took me a long time to come to terms with this.

Anyway, I was horrified when the tutor asked me to be the 'patient' for her to teach the class how to transfer a patient who just had surgery from the trolley bed to the ward bed!!! In my mind, I saw my tutor and classmates fumbling under my weight and dropping me to the ground where I had a bad fall and cracked part of my head open like a watermelon! Despite my protests, I was made to lie on the trolley bed and 'pretend' I just had some surgery. I closed my eyes and winced most of the time but surprisingly, after instructing the students the techniques of transferring using a Patslide (a smooth board that's almost as long as the bed), the transfer was very smooth! I freely complimented them because I remembered how terribly the nurses in the hospital transferred me after my surgery.

A classmate said maybe, because we were all newbies, we were all keen to do a good job and that maybe, those nurses in the hospital couldn't care less because they had been doing it for years. Gee, I certainly hope that isn't true deep down in my heart although I understood where she was coming from. We may have done it for years and the novelty might have waned for us but certainly, every patient deserves our best, regardless of status, race, etc. Looks like special effort will have to be made when I'm a nurse, to continually remind myself that at the heart of the whole matter, is the patient, and that whatever frustrations I have with the job or the system, they should not be allowed to influence the way I treat the patient. I'll have to find another outlet to vent my frustrations - on the job is no time to show how burnt out or unhappy one is. OK. Taken note. :)

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