Kimmy's Comments - and then there were two

Firstly thank you for all your lovely thoughtful words. I found it really helpful posting my last blog and really appreciated all the comments. Last week was a thoughtful week, I had my 6 month assessment with my UK GP trainer over the phone and we talked about my experiences and how I can relate them back to GP life in the UK. I’d thought that this yr wouldn’t really translate back to home, but after my assessment on thursday I realised that I’ve learnt so much and grown so much as a doctor. I felt really proud showing him my online portfolio of experiences. I think the assessment validated all my recent thoughts about my time here. It was great. I feel much more competent now, I’ve settled in to the work more.

More tails from work.....So, oncall on Thursday evening there was an emergency caesarean section to do. Karl pulled the baby from the womb and passed it to the midwife “dombi” they said–a girl. Then he said “I’ll just check there aren’t twins” and then pulled out another baby, bigger than the first and the nurses shouted “inkwenkwe” A BOY! They were all dancing around and gleeful about this surprise, it was infectious. Noone had the slightest idea there were twins, it is just routine to say ‘better check for a second one’ but you never actually find one.

The first baby who was much smaller and the midwife said she was worried about her so I descrubbed to resuscitate her. Her we go again I was thinking, a rerun of the horrible resusc at the weekend with the baby who died. But, I felt calmer after my previous experience and bagged the baby and after 10minutes she started breathing for herself. It was quite comical because we only had one incubator bed thingy so the big fat brother was squashed on the right side and the little scrap of a sister I was helping breathe was ‘topping and tailing’ (it is better to resusc head downwards). At one point the brother was trying to suckle the big toe of his older sister. It was funny (well, funny once the sister was breathing herself).

So, that was great, a feeling of competence and joy that the twin was okay. Not sure how this first time mum feels about 2 kids, but we were all delighted! Hope she has enough food for them both.

I’ve now moved from maternity to paediatrics ward. I feel sad to leave maternity because I knew the sisters well and felt comfortable there, but this profession is about constantly testing and challenging yourself. You’re never left on any ward long enough to get bored!
Paeds is different in many ways. When the kids are getting better it is lovely, they run around the ward and as they get more confident they interact with you too. Some get quite cheeky, they’re not so hung up on skin colour and what’s proper. If you pull a silly face at them they tend to smile. This is obviously an odd balance though, as they also know sometimes you might have to take a blood test ie needle ie pain and misery, so some of them don’t like me or cry if I appear in the room. I’m used to that now though.

We have a little burns unit on the ward....5 kids with horrid burns. It happens a lot, burns from stoves usually, and they throw all sorts on it...Dettol is a favourite ‘to stop infection’...and to burn the skin and add chemical burns to their list of problems. Brilliant! We have to give the kiddies ketamine before we change their dressings because the burns are so sore. Poor little things. I had an amusing interlude on my wards round last week when Shannon the occupational therapist was in the burns room with a sweet 4 yr old girl who has badly burnt her right hand. All the skin is blistered and peeling off. Shannon wants to keep the fingers and wrist mobile so that as the skin heals it doesn’t tighten up reducing movement. However, kids are so up for it if you just bark orders like ‘clench your fist and open it’ so instead, Shannon was found by me singing twinkle twinkle little star whilst twinkling her fingers (opening and closing them) with this sweeeet little girl singing along and moving her fingers. It was a great moment, seeing how such a simple clever thing will affect the function of this girls dominant hand in the future. Happy stories in kimmy’s comments today.

I even had one 1 yr old who managed to giggle and laugh all through me sticking needles in his arms trying to get a precious blood sample. Who knows why, I just kept grinning at him and he seemed not to feel the pain. He was cute. I’ve noticed my ‘favourite child of the week’ is always the one that smiles at me. Does that make me a bad person? I was on fired on Friday though, had 1 drip (iv line) to put in and two blood samples to take and got them all pretty quickly. I was delighted. I high fived the nurses. They probably think I'm nuts, but hopefully in an infectious way. I think I’ll like get to like paeds, at least I hope so.