Monday, December 22, 2008

The Chronicles of Hernia, Week 2

After enduring an entire first week of pep talks by clinical school bigwigs who spend more time posing for newspaper pictures than actually spending time with students and whom we'll probably never see again until Graduation Day, I stepped into Stalingrad General Hospital on my first day full of admonitions to "make it a positive experience" and "clinical school is what you make it" and "think positive!" (and also "for God's sake, don't accept a verbal caution from the police when you get caught piss drunk at the local pub", but that's slightly beside the point. -Ed.) So like a good little boy who's read The Secret twice cover to cover without falling asleep/clawing my eyes out/having to buy the movie instead, I gird my loins, tell myself it's gonna be an abso-friggin-lutely amazing day, and step into the hospital.

My ward is on the 9th floor. I have 15 minutes to make it upstairs. Plenty of time, right? Right. Until I see that the one lift that isn't hovering resolutely near the top floor is out of service. And just to rub it into our faces, it's even got a special icon to tell us poor sods that it's on a coffee break:


Har har. We have a comic genius on the maintenance staff! I scoot over to the stairs and leg it up 9 flights of stairs, stopping only twice to have a minor heart attack. When I finally arrive half-dead on the 9th floor but fearful of Komrade Professor's wrath, I meekly enter the teaching room but lo and behold! Komrade Professor isn't there. He's been called away on urgent business, probably to give the Queen her annual physical or check out this new wart on President Obama's finger or whatever. So us peons do some practice physical examinations, then I go out to get a drink. Returning to the room, sure to find my fellow students eager to proceed in productive horizon-widening learning, I see instead scrawled on my notes:

I'm sure they had something urgent to attend to. How nice of them to leave me a note! Ah well, I can get on with things myself. It's not like they were being mean and scribbling all over my notes or anything! Walking to the ward, I turn over to my patient list and see:

Yes, that DOES say what you think it says.
("I want Angry to come and examine me...mmmm...")

Oh, I am feeling SO positive right now.

29 comments:

tracy said...

Congrats on "Grand Rounds"...!!! Yay! And thanks so much for the visit to Shauna, i was so happy to see your cute mug there! "....examine me...mmmmmm..." Heh, heh!

Anonymous said...

Haha very amusing Angry!

I'm still trying to work out if your clinical years are with my med school...

Judging the picture of the elevator, I have no idea!

mushana udon mustafa said...

hahaHAHA for the cup above the elevator.gile lah. what on earth were u thinking at that time?

by the way, recently the updates have been quite frequent eh? good , good... now i have more things to read. thanks. haha.

Aspie Medic said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anna said...

St Mary's, perhaps?

Dr. Deb said...

Wishing you a Happy Holiday and New Year. Can't wait to read angry funny blogposts from you in 2009.

ditzydoctor said...

oh mannnn. is that your writing below that? (the crackles: pulm oedema, infections etc) v neat! :)

good luck with clinicals angry! don't be afraid (hurrrrr). getting rejected will only prepare you for going up to lots of hot babes later on! ;)

Ms-Ellisa said...

The coffee mug on the elevator is really hillarious!!!... I don't quite know though, if I would have appreciated it as much, were it me desperate to climb up 9 floors and fast...

*Jesus- NINE??? My hospital has five-*

Dan said...

yo nigga! i'm gonna bust yo punk ass!

eh shit man. cambridge is friggin boring without your lame ass shit. come back, we go bust kuhan n ugu n oggsness'es punk ass too.

Dan said...

angree medic. merry christmas.

i would expect tons of emergency cases today though

Dan said...

also, i left santa some brocolli to help him lose weight.

he didn't leave me any presents.

tracy said...

Happy Christmas, Angry! Love ya, sweets!

Dan said...

"Hey, Luke, thanks for coming after me -- now I owe you one."

- Return of the Jedi

Dan said...

and yes, i still want to spank agnes. she is naughty

Dan said...

maybe i should have said that anonymously

Dan said...

no.. she would have definitely figured out who said it

Foundation Trust Watch said...

We are awaiting your humorous Christmas injuries post keenly.

Dan, if things are a little boring, I'm sure some of our members could pop over and liven things up for you.

Socrates said...

Dan,
I think use of the "N" word is the prerogative of young black, urban crack smokers, rather than middle class boys from KL studying at Cambridge.

AM, the European Working Time Directive cannot protect you from what's about to happen...

Socrates said...

Sorry Dan, that should've been Kuching, not KL.

Dan said...

Socrates: no, don't worry, angry and i call each other with mistaken racial stereotypes all the time. he thinks i'm chinese sometimes.

Foundation Trust Watch: it's just my way of expressing how much i miss angry medic.

Socrates said...

Dan,

I miss AM too, in a slightly twisted and rather scarily obsessive manner.

AM, that black satin, red polka dot, posing pouch didn't get lost on the way to the Big Smoke.

It's nailed to my bedroom wall, next to the jar of your toe-nail clippings.

Anonymous said...

happy new year everyone!

ditzydoctor said...

happy new year angry! :)

tracy said...

Hey, Angry,
Was just wathcing some "Black Adder-or should that be'B'ladder'(geddit)-Goes Fourth" and thought of you. Happy 2009!

Ya'll be careful out there, Komrade,
Love, momma tracy

Anibal Monasterio Astobiza said...

Happy New Year! Angry.
Best.

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year! =)

Genevieve said...

Among everything else on your blog, your header is quite entertaining as well.

Congrats on Grand Rounds

The Angry Medic said...

OMG it has come to my attention that I am a lazy bastard when it comes to replying comments. So please accept my apologies and my assurances that I will come and spam your blogs in due time.

IT HAS ALREADY BEGUN *deep overly dramatic Christopher Lee voice*

Anonymous said...

Outstanding. Good to know that med school is internationally painful, and that I'm not the only one that cut class to hit the pub.