Merry Christmas Eve

Yesterday was a long day. I got home a little after 8 pm, and by the time I did, I was too tired to work on a post. Forgive me. 

To catch you up on what happened, it was a usual Thursday on the ward with only one doctor. This meant lots of work. I tried to help as much as I could, but administratively, there's only so much I can assist with because of the language barrier. In the afternoon, while working on the patient notes, the Professor came by. He told the other 'stagiair,' and I that he had a case for us. The literal translation of stagiair is trainee, us, medical students, are referred to as "doctor stagiairs" at UZ Leuven. Anyways, he presented us with a case of severe hyponatremia, low sodium in the blood. There were three questions he wanted us to answer, but he would give us a day to get back to him. We needed to determine the cause of the severe hyponatremia, the treatment, and the risk for Anaesthesia.

After the Professor left, we continued working on the patient notes. It was getting late, and we all wanted to get him, so we finished the most important things and made a list of some things I could chase up on my own in the morning.

Today, my doctor went to Proctology consultations, and I stayed upstairs to see our patients. I did my usual. I reviewed all the patients' files and made some notes for things to check up on when I go to examine them. I checked my notes from yesterday to see what phone calls needed to be made before seeing them. Once I handled those, I began examining the patients I knew spoke English. Next, I asked the other stagiair, who is from Belgium and speaks Dutch, if he would go with me to see the remaining patients and help with translating. He agreed. We saw all the patients and headed back to the doctor's office to write the notes.

My doctor came back around 1 pm. I hadn't yet written notes for every patient, so as she slowly went through each patient's file I would chime in with any pertinent info. We had five patients to be discharged. My doctor put together the discharge notes as I worked on the notes for today. Whenever she had everything ready for a patient, I went to give them their paperwork, asked them if they had any questions, and wished them a Merry Christmas.

As a medical student, I can order labs and request imaging, but it has to be validated by my doctor. I can write the daily notes in English as almost all workers at the hospital speak English, and these notes are just meant to keep us up to date on the patient's treatment. For discharge summaries and the weekend notes, since I don't speak Dutch, I can't help with those. Some days I feel bad that I can't do more; however, my doctor is very nice. She always thanks me for I all I do. On days like today, for example, she didn't have to see all the patients on the ward, I had seen them, and she let me know how grateful she was.

Teamwork makes the dream work!

On a side note, thank goodness the Professor didn't come by today because I never got a moment to stop to review that patient's file. I’ll add that to my list of things to do on Monday.

Today wasn't much shorter than yesterday, but it's finally the weekend, my second week in Hepatology is done, and tomorrow is Christmas.

Posing next to the Christmas tree on the Hepatology ward.

I hope you guys can spend time this weekend with your loved ones, eating good food, and making new memories. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.