A bad day? No way!

This morning I woke up to an email with the subject, “Corona Update 01.12.2021.” So, I guess it was from yesterday, and I missed it; anyways, I checked it out. I got to the part that said, “Other clinical classes, viewing internships, and bedside teaching will be reviewed during the day to determine if they need to be stopped due to force majeure.” And that's when the panic set in.

I quickly got ready and made my way to the hospital. I spoke to the doctor I was partnered with for the day to see if he had heard any additional information, but he hadn't. I emailed the Professor in charge of my next internship starting on December 13. As he's also the Vice Dean of International Affairs at KU Leuven and had been the one to sign off on my Erasmus, I figured if anyone could give me answers, it would be him. Luckily, he replied to my email almost immediately and reassured me that there would be no interruption in my Erasmus program.

Phew, what a relief! Now I could get on with my day. The doctor I was following with informed me he had outpatient appointments till noon and asked that I see his patients on the ward until he got back. Oh boy, first time seeing patients on my own. This was exciting but also a bit daunting. I was nervous about taking the patient’s history and performing the physical examination, but even more worried about the language barrier since the spoken language in Leuven is Dutch. 

I started by reviewing their charts from yesterday, checking why they were admitted, and looking to see if there were any previous complaints that I should follow up on during my examination. I jotted down some notes and headed to see the patients. First, I checked with the nurses to see if anything significant happened during the night for each of the patients. I noted what they said and walked into the first patient's room. 

I introduced myself and asked if they could speak English. I explained that I was there to take their history and examine them on behalf of the doctor. I started by asking how they were feeling, if they had any nausea/vomiting, if they had any difficulty breathing, if they had any swelling of the legs, if they had any rash or itching etc. My last question was if they had any other complaints I should know about. Then I performed a physical examination: I checked for jugular vein distention, ankle edema, crepitations when auscultating the lungs. At the end of my examination, I thanked the patient and informed them that I would discuss my findings with the doctor, and we'd come by in the afternoon to discuss the next steps.

After repeating this five times, it was finally time to head back to the doctor's office to write my notes. Soon the doctor came back, we reviewed my findings and discussed a plan for each patient. Then we went to see them.

Well, it turns out it wasn’t a bad day after all.