Turning Point

I feel a corner has been turned!

After two and a half weeks of being on Kosrae, I finally managed to change the background picture on my blog page! Success. Hooray. The picture is still alas from the blog page template selection but is uncannily similar to some of the sights I see here.

And it's all thanks to the internet at the hospital. I'm now on the computer network here and things are looking bright for the prospect of more posts. These days I'm on the inpatient unit, being supervised by the very friendly and excellent teacher that is Dr Tholman Alik (senior doctor in Internal Medicine). I'm learning lots from him and he gets me involved with the ward round every morning (I actually get to take part in it - writing notes, suggesting what I think is wrong or what should be done next - which is a nice novelty!). However, ward round is over with by the mid-morning so hopefully there will be chances to write some stories from my latest adventures from the hospital's speedy internet.

Today also marks a significant point because it is exactly the halfway point of my time here. 34 days stay in total and this is day 17. I was reminded of this because, very sweetly, the little son (Oci, nearly 7 years) of the owners of where I'm staying and another little lad on the island (Cosmos, 6 1/2 years) had counted down the number of days I have until I leave because they didn't want me to leave (!). I was very touched. I'm normally a bit on the useless side with the little people of this planet.

There are still lots of things that I want to explore on the island in my remaining 17 days and this week's adventures are a good example: later today I hope to go on the mild-moderate hike to Menka Ruins (I don't know much about what it used to be but hopefully will do after this trip - I will tell all soon!), I'll visit some waterfalls on my way up too, Saturday I'll be going on a scuba dive where I hope to see the amazing marine life in the ocean, and sometime in the near future I'm hoping to climb to one of the two high points of the island - Mount Oma or Mount Finkol. This is all on the back of daily ward rounds and work at the hospital and having completed the challenge of my first twilight shift (4pm-midnight) at the hospital last night. (it was great fun, and I only started to flag at about 11:30pm). This week I'm certainly burning the candle at both ends but I'm thinking it will all be worth it - there's not much chance I'll ever come back to the island (it's so far away)....and I can sleep on the plane back home, right?

Along with these turning points is a shift in my cofidence that I can feel happening. Medical confidence that is. This week, having been in the new setting of the inpatient ward, I've been feeling like I actually know some things! I've been asked questions on the ward round by the senior doctors, in front of patients, and for the most part I've got them pretty much correct. Yippee! My supervisor (Dr Tholman) was kindly giving me some encouragement on how well I have been doing so far and I said to him that I'll take it as a reflection that all the work from this year in med school seems to have paid off a little. This isn't just information I've learned for exam purposes; here I am demonstrating knowledge that has a real application to the patient in front of me. And I haven't remembered it just to pass an exam, but because it genuinely helps me figure out what is wrong with the patient. It's been a very positive few days. And, given I found out about 4 days ago that I'd passed all of my medical school exams far better than I thought I might, well...everything's coming up roses. Saying this, there is always more to learn in medicine and get better at; I need to work this week on how to present a summary of the patient's case on ward round. I'm not so good at this right now. And I need to learn a bit more about all the tropical diseases that they have here that I'm not so familiar with: Leptospirosis, Dengue fever, Shigella, Giardia and Leprosy.

Fun times continue to lie ahead!