In the driver's seat

Yesterday in our clinical skills lab, they actually brought in real people with real problems to interview. For our entire clinical skills course, our lab sessions have involved examining each other. Even though we had local people to do our examinations on for our midterm, we still had to do a lot of pretending. For example, my practical scenario basically read that the guy had varicosities on his legs, an an ulcer on his ankle. So when I went to see the patient there were no veins or ulcers, and I had to proceed to examine as if they were there (its kind of hard to map out a non existent varicose vein).

So yesterday, we when saw a patient with actual complaints, it was almost surreal for a moment. In addition to the patient’s chief complaints, we went through some basic physical signs. When I took the blood pressure, and found that the person nearly had malignant hypertension I sort of had an “Omigod – this person has a real problem” moment. I think I had that flash of reflective thought given the situation it was in. I’ve done health fairs here, and I’ve worked in a clinic at home, so it was not as though it was the first time I encountered a stranger with a real health problem. I think it was the fact that for the first time in this course, we were given something real, something tangible to observe and investigate for ourselves. Other than some fungus-y looking toenails, the patient appeared completely fine, when in actuality they were a ticking time bomb to a number of other problems (and that wasn't even what they were coming in for!).

So I guess what I’m trying to say, is that I’m excited to do some more of this stuff (sort the same feeling you get when you’re 10 16, and your dad lets you try driving for the first time).