Ending Obgyn 2

Day before yesterday was the last day of my Obstetrics & Gynaecology second posting,, and yeap I needed a full day break before I could put into words how last month went by. Well I’m still on rest mode 😉 , luckily I have a week to rest(hopefully).

I started my Obgyn in Kalutara hospital on September 21st and was supposed to end on October 16th, but according to our sir it is not a month so he asked to stay till October 20th, therefore we extended our stay, which initially annoyed me but in the end it was all worth it.

My day starts at 4:30 am, a hot plain tea, cold shower and I head out to UHKDU to get on the bus. Bus departs around 6:15 am and we reach Kalutara hospital around 7:20 am. Initial days P&S was closed so I immediately go to the ward while my colleagues are having breakfast. I can survive whole day without breakfast just fine, so it was not a problem. Later on with the lockdown being lifted, P&S right infront of the hospital opened up so that was my breakfast spot almost everyday. I would have 2 chicken puffs and one muffin and head to the ward.

I started off in Gyn, did two weeks in Gyn ward and rotated with other half of group members to Obs side for another 2 weeks and 3 days. We got to go to theatre 2 students per day once a week and we had to stay till all cases were over. Labor room we went freely when during Obs.

We get roughly 2 hours to take histories and do the examination before our sir comes for his ward rounds. Its not a typical ward round, his rounds start at 9:45 am and we have to say “Good morning Sir” and can go till 1:30 pm where he ends in Post natal side. Its hard to predict who will be caught on which day, his targets mainly were the owners of “interesting patients”. I was caught a few times where my patient had an Ovarian mass, breech presentation twice and transverse lie and that time where I forgot to say Good morning sir, which really annoyed him.

Our sir was well dressed, very punctual, dedicated and a skilful surgeon, confident in his decisions and management and a very good teacher who always loved to teach. (Even on the last day). Our team had House officers, Senior house officers, Registrar 3rd year and 1st year registrar and then us. So during the rounds he always would teach mainly to them and some minor points to us and assigned tasks to the Registrars to teach us and made sure we were taught the next day by asking us if they taught, and ask from us if we have any questions for him. It was a weekly thing where he asked from us if we had any questions.

Obs round last longer than Gyn round, and post natal round is the shortest.

After the rounds at 1-1:30 pm, while other group people leave, I head over to get lunch from the kade and quickly munch it and head back to the clinic on Tue (Obs), Thur (Gyn) and on other days we had classes by registrars. Friday we get to leave early except people in theatre.

Most days I reach home by 6 pm, take a shower order dinner and try to read for an hour before I doze off.

That was basically my routine for over a month.

It was truly a great experience to work with him, he would ask for our opinion in management of the patient, I felt like I was part of the team for the first time. Moreover I was seeing my long term, intermediate and short term goals everyday ! Long term goal is to be a consultant one day, intermediate is the Registrars and short term is to be House officer ASAP.

Bit about the registrars, we usually dont get attachments in hospital with registrars. This was the second time for me. But If you get registrars then thats the best thing that will ever happen to you, because they do teach, and you can ask any questions from them, they are always happy to help. Our registrars were both very smart, they knew the theory sooo welll I was just amazed everyday, how they answer all of sirs questions within a split second. I was just WOWed everyday and I wanted to be like them.

They were really friendly too, called us using our names which the remembered. That was touching.

Personally for me, I learnt a lot from sir, not only he guided us in Obgyn but he also gave us life advices, made sure we are disciplined and also told us the importance of having tough consultants like him.

We got to celebrate his 50th birthday during the posting and he treated us for lunch the next day which was really sweet.

The nursing staff were lovely too, specially the sister we got aww.

Im quite sad to leave the Obgyn ward, we had one of the hardest clinical training there but it was all worth it. Great Sir, great registrars and HOs. Everything was great, which kinda makes me forget the stress, pain and the annoying time I had to wake up everyday.

I know people like him are rare and I wont meet anyone like that in near future, but one can hope.