Hospital posting-- journal 2

This week we were switched from orthopaedic ward to general medical ward. The overall experience was good. The staff nurses are better, and I got to learn and practice a lot more in this ward than before.
After three days in the female ward, the strongest feeling I had was—I don’t want to be like them when I am old. Additionally, caring them is a lot more frustrated than male patients.
I’m sorry, but it is.
If you compare a 50-something female patient with a 70-something male patient, you will get what I mean. Obesity dominates majority of the female patients. Additionally, some of them are very lazy. Yes, very LAZY.
They just lie there and expect you to do every thing for them, although they are able to walk normally. If you try to turn their bodies, they whine. If you ask them to lift up their buttocks, they say they can’t. If you ask them to lie properly, they ignore you because they want to sleep.
What the headache!
Anyways, having them as my reflection, I know I want to be healthy when I’m old. Maybe I should start practicing yoga and commit in a healthier lifestyle. On the other hand, I can’t imagine myself living without cheese, pancakes/waffles, KFC, fries……
Today I cleaned a diarrheic patient. As I removed the pampers, the smell of “flower” instantly hit me straight on the face.
Oh my god.
Due to the CI disallowed us to wear mask, I had to hold my breath, get my head down, wipe it, and then quickly turned around, inhaled the best air as possible before the next round began again.
After I finished, I felt so happy, not that because the procedure was finally finished, but because I felt so achieved and proud of myself. Except my little dog, I had never done something like this before, not to anybody. Let alone my parents, my brothers, even my lovely boyfriend. I remember many years ago, my uncle got a stroke. I even refused to help him to pass urine. Today, am I actually pulling my pride down and doing this. It really means a lot to me. I’m sure it goes same with the patient herself.
I’m still having a conflict about the whole mask and gloves thing. The CI said we ignored the patient’s feelings if we wore gloves and masks for every procedure. Yes, some of the procedures really need no protection. But when I feel like I need to protect myself for certain procedure, why can’t I? Yes, being a nurse, caring the patients is the top priority. It doesn’t mean the nurse should love herself less. It is not that I’m being selfish; it is just that I want to be more cautious. I mean, I have to protect myself, to prevent myself—or the patient himself—from falling in sick, in order to be able to continue to care for and help the patients. Have people ever thought about why MRSA disease is common in the hospitals here, but 0% in UK hospitals?
Today, a doctor was supposed to clean the pressure ulcer of a patient. Because the patient got diarrhoea, the doctor scolded at the patient’s mom. She asked me to clean for the patient and then tell the stuff nurse to clean the ulcer site instead. She herself then disappeared right away. What a good doctor.
Why there are so many doctors’ malpractice cases here? I think the doctors are addicted to the powers they get from their superior job, and have forgotten about their core of ethics—to cure the patients. Every morning, they come around the ward and do check up for every patient. All they do are just asking patient some questions, maybe palpate a little bit here and there, and then disappear. Once they have the diagnosis, they keep on prescribing the same plan and medicines for the patient. If the patient persists the condition for quite a time, aren’t they trying to figure out the reason? Maybe it is not the fever they have diagnosed, maybe it is pneumonia that causes the fever? Like years ago, my brother got an appendis surgery. It took more than three physicians to finally find out what had happened to him. I mean, appendis is not as hard to diagnose as fever, how could it take three physicians? Maybe the first and second physician shouldn’t have being a doctor. I think there are actually a lot of illnesses can be cure, apart from the scientific technology, one of the reasons is probably the misdiagnosis from the doctors.
I always jot down the illnesses that I especially concern and then ask my boyfriend’s brother rather than asking the doctors here directly. Yes, I’m still having a hard time to trust the doctors here.
While the people here are “worshipping” the doctors, I treat them equally as how I treat other people. Of course I still show my respectful manner when I work with them. After all, I know I have to be professional. Are you a doctor? You think you deserve my respect? Prove me that I’m wrong.

White Angel part 2

Oh my, oh my, what can I do?
Lord please relieve the pain he suffers
I realized I know nothing, so I’ve got to be good
So I can help the patients like him when I become a nurse

I walked in the ward, and I saw an old man
He’s just returned from the OT
There he was lying, looking at me
Leg was swollen; wound was bleeding

I couldn’t help, but looked at him
I’ll never forget the face that day
Tears in his eyes, pain on his face
Asking me for help

Oh my, oh my, what can I do?
Lord please relieve the pain he suffers
I realized I know nothing, so I’ve got to be good
So I can help the patients like him when I become a nurse

There was his son standing next to me
Looking worried, and I didn’t know what to say
He was brought to the X-ray room
But somehow he managed to smile at me

The end of the night, I went to see him again
I held his hand; I looked at him and said,
“Just a little while, you will be fine”
But somehow he’s still smiling at me
Something warm rollin’ through my eyes

Today I went to see him before I left
He was smiling, waving his hand
He shook my hand and said, “thank you”

Oh my, oh my, what can I do?
Lord please relieve the pain he suffers
I realized I know nothing, that I’ve got to study harder
So I can help more people when I become a nurse

White Angels part 1

What’s happened to the little white angels?
Smiles no longer hanging on their faces
Left with numbness and apathy

What’s happened to the little white angels?
Glorifying the nobility of their deed
Drips are drying, medicines are forgotten, patients are crying

What’s happened to the little white angels?
Promoting the professionalism of their works
Shaking their heads to English and pointing their fingers to doctor

What’s happened to our little white angels?
Has they turned to become evils?
–Or, has god taken their beautiful hearts away?

What’s happened to our little white angels?
When can the patients in this land be free from suffering?
And when is the day our little angels return home with lamps in their hands?

Hospital posting-- journal 1

I have been ambivalent for the past few days since I came back from my first-week posting in Sg. Buloh Hospital.
I knew that it is ridiculous to compare the real-life environment with the embellished, fancy, and, if I can say, glamorous scenes you often see on the show like ER, or Grey’s Anatomy. I also knew that I am being too hypercritical or biased if I compare the nurses in Canada with the nurses here. Somehow, I just couldn’t help but felt disappointed, especially when I witnessed how the staff nurses treated a patient who just returned from the operating room.
Looking at the patient’s face wretched by tears, I was heart-broken. A wave of anger rushed over me. I wanted to stand up for the patient. On the other hand, I was uncommunicative. After all, what kind of power a student nurse has over senior staff nurses? I wanted to release the pain he was suffering. On the other hand, I was stuck in the mud. After all, what kind of skill or knowledge does a three-month student nurse really know?
I decided to talk to the patient. As I opened my mouth, I realized that my tongue, somehow, got stuck in the throat.
There was no word coming out of my mouth.
I had used to think that communication with patients would not be a problem to me as my previous employment has given me an adeptness in handling of customers. That day, I realized that communicating with healthy people and communicating with sick people are two different things.
You just cannot set off the conversation with “the weather is very nice today”, can you? I mean the patient is lying on the bed suffering. He cannot even enjoy every minute, and you are telling him that the weather is nice?
When Ms. Noorlida assigned me to a unit, I was standing there and frozen for quite awhile. I was shock—no matter how well I thought I could handle it, and no matter how well I had prepare procedures prior to the theories and the practice, my mind went off instantly. I didn’t know what to do.
“It is my first time ‘working’ in a hospital. Being panic is understandable,” this was what I told myself afterwards.
Nevertheless, the experience that I gained was marvellous and precious. Although I was upset by the attitudes of the staff nurses, at least I still learned a lot from them. And I finally had a taste of how it is like working in a hospital. Having bad nurses as a reflect, I now know how to be a good nurse. Since I cannot tell them in face, this is what I want to say—if you really hate your job, just quit. Don’t put your sufferings on other people and treat them as your scapegoats. As what Ms. Celine said, what goes around, it comes back around. One day, when other nurses take care of your beloved ones, they will do the same.