Clerkship update: Dermatology

At last, some free time to myself.

I've decided to shelve the San Lazaro Chronicles indefinitely (or until I finish clerkship) and will now continue my stories of the other rotations while the memories are still fresh..

DERMATOLOGY

Now, picking up from where I previously left off (about 3-4 entries ago), it was time to move on to Derma. Now, the cool thing about derma is that it was mainly an OPD thing. This meant I got to go home every day and have Sundays off for two weeks. However, Dermatology requires a clerk on duty every day to answer calls and referrals from both the ERCD and TR-Pay, kinda like an acting intern. (Hehe, intern na rin nga pala ako in a few weeks time..) After seeing the patient in qestion, you text your resident on duty for disposition of the patient. As the duty clerk, it's also your responsibility to check up on all ward referrals to Derma, and also to monitor and do scut work if ever there would be patients confined at the 3-bed Dermatology Ward. Seems pretty benign enough dosen't it? Not quite...

The OPD experience there is really very extensive. You see a great number of patients with varying complaints every day, ranging from the most disturbing skin lesions, to the silliest of problems like simple acne (especially on Saturdays, when the OPD is only open for half the day). However, I still felt unprepared for the revalida if ever I should get a Derma case for my clinicals.. Nahihirapan kasi ako magdistinguish and gumawa ng differentials.. Buti na lang hinde!!!

It's a relatively stress-free rotation, and your only concern is getting the required 3 teachings from 3 different consultants before the rotation was over. This proved to be a bit more chellenging on our part, because we rotated there duringthe pre-residency period, where aspiring candidates for residency fill the hospital and pick up some of the slack. It dosen't really sound so bad, but when you consider the fact that they also take patients to present to consultants, sometimes you find yourselves scrambling near the end to finish. Don't get me wrong, the Derma pre-residents were nice, and we got along with most of them pretty well. As a matter of fact, the 3 among them who we were secretly rooting for were eventually accepted as residents!! :D Belated congratulations to Drs. Ces, Ingrid, and Pam!

Derma duty was a differnt thing for me altogether. Derma had no official clerks' room, so the poor derma clerk on duty either 1)went home if home was nearby to await any calls, or 2) was forced to squat at a clerks' room of another service to spend the night and rest. I had two duty nights. The first one found me all alone, while I had Johnny Ona during the 2nd duty. The first one wasn't so bad, I had a handful of calls to the ER, had a patient admitted to the ward. It was pretty tiring from 5pm til midnight, but things quieted down thereafter. I found myself squatting at the Neuro Clerks room and Surgery Clerks' room on two different occasions, dead tired but happy that the blasted duty would be ending in a few hours. Oh yeah, I also worked on the discharge papers of another patient who woud be leaving the following day..

The duty with Pat was a different deal. We were being toxic in bursts, admitting an obnoxious "scaly man" who had exfoliative dermatitis. Being called to the ER/TR about 5-6 different times, and admitting an equally diffcult "scaly lady" at 4am in the morning. We squatted at the Legal Med office, though I can't remember who among our classmates were duty there at the time.. Toxic talaga yung combination namin ni Pat!!

We had a grand duty for the residents before moving on to Neurology and Psychiatry. KFC chicken.. Mmm... :D

That's all the time I have for now. I'll be heading back to the Pedia OPD in a while. More catch-up updates to follow next time..

Rotation stories not yet told:

San Lazaro
Psychiatry
Neurology
Medicine (Medyo mahaba ito)
"Dr. Go" (Medicine) elective
Neurology elective
Radiology ( the cumpolsory elective..)
Community Med (Sapang! Wohoo!)
Pediatrics OPD (still ongoing)
Pediatrics Ward (including Nursery and Fabella part II)

The Lord has done great things for me.. Never in my entire life have I imagined that I would one day earn the right to have an MD attached to my name... Thank you po..