The back passage club

Patients are often the butt ( literally) of , or should i say, the receiving end of ( very literally again I must add) digital rectal examinations. It’s a terribly unfortunate examination I must say. Used to aid doctors in their diagnosis of confirming gastrointestintal tract bleeding, enlarge or cancerous prostate glands, or spinal cord injury, this rather uncomfortable examination involved as the textbook answer an OSCES exam would describe :

“ the patient lying on his side with his pants pulled down. Knees should be bent and lifted towards the chest. The doctor should have one hand gloved with adequate lubrication gel on the examining finger. Gently place the finger at the anal opening and warn the patient to expect some discomfort. Feel the tip of the coccyx and then turn the finger around anteriorly to palpate the prostate and the median sulcus of the prostate gland. When done, withdraw the finger and wipe excess lubricant gel”

In other words... if you want to cut the crap, here’s the abbrievated, politically incorrect version.
“I’m gonna stick up gloved finger up your arse.. ALL the way UP your arse”
One had to provide adequate explaination of the procedure before commencing the examination and had to be sensitive towards the patient.
Needless to say, because it was such an uncomfortable procedure, we didnt’ get much exposure to real bums as a student. We practised on rubber bums and rubber prostates, giggling as we jammed our index fingers up the little black holes and feeling the fake prostates that our classmates inserted on the other end.
The most exposure I had as a student was during urology clinic, when the rather old school urologist just seized my hand and stuck my finger up the patients bums immediately after his finger had finished examining the offending protate glands with nary a hint of the venerated informed consent spiel we thought we had to give. Nope, not even the abrievated version of the informed consent was presented. Surgeons would tell us that there was only one and ONLY one excuse why you couldn’t perform a DRE ---- if you had no finger.
Suddenly we were thrown into internship, where DREs became a responsibility not a novelty. Many a doctor went on their ways ( sometimes with extraordinary measures) to avoid giving the patient the golden finger. We as interns, and the bottom of the rung, often landed up with the very un-coveted job. In the beginning, i never knew what the hell I was feeling for. I could never reach the prostate gland’s superior pole cause my fingers ( like the rest of my body) was rather vertically challenged. So many a tumour and prostate adenoma would have escaped my diagnosing skills. Geriatric medicine ( my first rotation) was full of bums awaiting the finger. Faecal loading and PR bleeds and urinary retention were the mainstay of problems and I found myself often facing the butt cheeks of my elderly patients who were struggling to stay on their sides while I performed the unfortunate examination. One of my earliest memories was sticking my finger up a lady’s butt while the smell of freshly passed poo wafted up from her diapers. I prayed that my hair didn’t sweep up any of it as I bent sideways to access the back passage with my finger.
Sometimes you had to hold back the gigantic butt cheeks of some overweight patients into order to locate It’s Holiness to place your finger in the right place. I even had the displeasure of dis-impacting ( ie, digging the shit out) with my finger for one very constipated patient on my first day at work in the emergency department. I was told that I was quite deserving of the title “the shit magnet”.

and one year later

It's been almost a year since i've blogged anything.

choices... it's always so difficult to make them. Whether it be career wise, where to live, housing, cars...
I feel pretty lost sometimes, just drifting from place to place, wondering if the next step i take is the one in the right direction.

I've left the place I spent 4 years of life and moved out into Boxhill, 40 min from melbourne city. I miss my old place already. I miss my room which overlooked the Flagstaff gardens. Standing in my old room with a rag in my hand as I cleaned up before the last housing inspection, I felt as though my one sancturary in melbourne had been just taken from me and scattered out in the open. That room held many memories for me.. from the trials and tribulations of semester 8, to the numeoruos OSCE practises me, N, WY and J9 spent there in sem 12, to all the times I spent talking to my dear family on skype, to the songs I wrote and sang on my guitar and the desk where I spent many hours poring over my medical books pre -exams. And then there were the memories of the rough months of internship, where I curled up on the bed and cried, to the sweet memories where my bf first took my hand. I miss my old housemate A, who has been as close as a sister since medical school and my working years. I felt like crying after I dropped A off at her new place and as I drove to my new accomodation in Boxhill.

Sigh, i think i'm too emo at times. Gotta let go and move on. So many things that will be unfamiliar next year. Leaving my parent hospital, moving to a new one. Leaving physicians training, trying out emergency ( tho' everyone thinks i'm crazy)

We'll see what next year brings

packing that extra punch

I was walking back with the secuirity guard after my late night shift. A plump,middle age, pint sized lady with a jolly smile and a lovely personality, she hardly seemed like the candidate for the role of a person who would instill fear in the many drunkards that showed up in the ED on weekend nights. I thought back to the beefy secuirity personale in my main hospital in the city who were ridden with bulging biceps and tatooes to match.

SHe was chattering cheerfully about how she had accompany nursing staff to their cars which were parked far away from teh hospital grounds at night.

" Isn't it dangerous for you to walk back by yourself?" i mused out loud.

" Nah, " she grinned. " Coz no one would wanna attack us, we're not health care personale!"

But really?

" did you take a course in self defence?" I asked.

" Nope, my experience comes from being invovled in the worst pub brawls for the last 20 years." she declared proudly.

Pub brawls?

"Yup, I know where to hit 'em where it hurts!" she bashed her fists togther.

" Just under the sternum, " she swung her hand to demonstrate. " Takes their breath right away, and you'll have them down and out for enough time to call the coppers"
" you can take them just at the bladder as well," she carried on brightly, a sparkle in her eyes. " makes them wet themselves"

What if they try hitting you?

" I move pretty fast. Usually I drop 3-4 inch to steady myself and they swing and miss, " she bent both knees. " and at that height i'll start taking them out there. " she did a mock punch.

Okaaaay. Don't mess with her siah...
she may not be the SVh beefcakes aka arnold schzw clones, but she certainly knows what she's doing.

bow and arrow

I was brought up in a school environment where our motto was " if guys can do it, we can do it better." RGS girls are pretty notorious for being rather tom-boyish and not afraid to vy with our male counterparts for the crowns in various aspects of our secondary school education. As highlighted in one very touchy newspaper article written by no-other then an RGS girl herself, RGS girls are often seen as go-getters who " cheered like cave men during sports events and probably would end up single for the rest of their lives."

I got into a good natured debate this morning with my better half. His opinion was that if a girl could " do it all" , then they were more likely not to find a partner just because the poor guy would be nothing but a trophy husband. His reasoning was that finding a partner was like a bow going together with an arrow, ie, you needed to be able to work towards a common goal together, instead of one half doing it all and leaving no room for further development and growth as a couple.


I pointed out that it may have to do with the male ego and the laws of natural selection. ie... in the past, guys had to demonstrate that they could provide for the family before they were handpicked as being a worthy mate. so there's a natural drive that the guy has to prove that he is "worthy"

To a certain extent, I do grudgingly agree with his concept. A relationship that works is one that allows both people to grow and learn together. However, there is a fine line between working together and compromising on one's independence and ability to tackle difficulties as an individual w/o over-reliance on one's partner. And it shoudln't come to a point where we end up suppressing our drive and personality just to appease the unfairer sex. So where do we draw the line?

Being in a r/ship is about giving, or like Ajahn Brahm says: about loving unconditionally. It's probably not so much about feeling needed, but more like wanting to do things for your other half just because you want to make things easier or better for them.

Well, as much as the bow and arrow concept may stand, I still think my notion of the need for male superiority still holds its own as well, as so nicely summed up by another acquiantence ( who has a Y chromosome) . " We guys like to feel needed. We like being used. " he quipped. I don't think us females have any issues with being occasional pampered pooches and damels in distress, as long as we still retain our skill to work and problem solve independently.

So the long and short answer? I don't really have a conclusion. I think it's middle ground. We've gotta have the drive to achieve whatever we know we are capable of achieving, but not to go overboard. Because I guess pushing yourself to the absolute , crazy limit may not be the best thing or compatible with a nice healthy stress-free lifestyle. Live some room for that dude to intervene and take some of the load off you.. esp if he's more than happy to do it!
Now.... how do I go about changing the tyres of my car??? * looks around for ef*

end of internship

it feels more " bleah" then " yay!"
at the dinner yestersday i think everyone was too tired to party late into teh night. half the crowd left by 11pm. our senior med reg was racing aroudn the room like a drunk road runner snapping photos with everyone after camera knapping someone's poor camera. she then proceeding to untie the ribbon round the chair and draped it aroudn herself and paraded through the room. hmmmm..
my feet were getting chewed up by the stilts ( not high heels) that i had been forced to wear by my girlfriends coz they refused to see me slip into my trusty flats . it's amazing i actually got up the stairs minus any mishaps.. i guess even if i did take a tumble down 3 flights , i coudln't be in a better place to have an accident , surrounded by doctors.
now back to spore in a few days..

what i've been up to.

Because ppl have been complaining that i've not updated in eons..( bleah, no time siah, gen med is just killing me through and through)... tada. here's some token photos and captions.

Preeeettty tulips that Ef got me for my bday. :P very distracting. I"m a newly converted flower person.. Preeety Pink Tulips!



Ef and me at the Braissere at Crown. Photo taken moments before we did the amazing race ( dash) to his car and attempted to get to the show Chicago in less than 1/2 hour. Needless to say, i had to beat a few red lights and do this incredibly unglamourous dash on high heels to the theatre. To the cut the long story short, we were still late. LOL. Thankfully, we were only left out for 10 minutes and not until the intermission.

Birthday weekend.. ef planned a trip to mornington. It was great..SUch a relief to get out of the city and just kick back and relax. i never realised that Victoria actually had such beautiful places. Shows just how much i've travlled around victoria in my 7 years here in melbourne.

We set off realy early for mornington hot springs.. quite an interesting experience. The crowd who were patronising the place were quite varied. THere were the families with their young kids in tow, gaggles of teenage to young adult girls, elderly folk and young couples like ourselves. . We started off in the 38 deg pool, which was comfortably warm, and the moved around the various hot springs, each boasting increasingly warm temperatures.. I was wondering why ppl were sitting ardn the 42 deg pool and not in it. It was until i dipped my foot in that i understood why. Ouch. definitely not a pool you'd wanna cannonball into. unless you had a death wish of becoming quite nice and toasted. DIdn't take photos coz i 'd to leave my camera in the locker room.

We then drove along and stopped at teh strawberry farm where we picked our own strawberries. gosh, the last time i went to sunnyridge was in year 2 with aiai, lz and nic! ages ago! I was dreaming abt the homemade icecream ( smth i've been craving for since year 2) mmmm... We then drove on towards Rye. The beach at Rye was gorgeous. We had fish and chips by the sea ( while been eyeballed by a huge flock of hungry seagulls, one which contemptiously shit on my left foot coz we didn't feed them). The sea was just a brilliant aqua colour. i was so tempted to jump in. If only the weather wasn't that cold.

We then check out our accomodation, ( see above) this realy rustic cottage settled next to a backpacker's accomodation. It was awesome. Had DVD player , bbq pit and all, and was a stones throw away from teh beach.

We then beach hopped.. went to sorrento and had the famous vanilla slice while lounging by the beach ( watched.. as usual by teh omnipresent sea gulls)

Then went to another beach which had magnificent cliffs and was deliciously unspoilt by touristy features. It was freezing tho'..

The next day, we had breakie in sorrento, then took the ferry to Geelong and drove home from there. It was lovely.. thanks dear for the bday prezzie.. had a great time!

One of the beaches around sorrento. It was gorgeous..

Growing up, growing old

We were at Buddhi and Ishi's place having coffee after dinner. Buddhi and Ef sat on the couch chatting about work and rugby, while I joined Ishi at the table to look through her wedding album. As I watched Ishi serve the guys tea, I couldn't shake a nagging feeling of deja vu that this was a scene I was so familiar with when I was a kid: My dad sitting at one side with his friends talking about work whilst my mom lounged in another corner of hall with the ladies chit chatting about their children. Though the scene was comforting in some ways, it was rather disconcerting to realise that I was no longer seeing it through the eyes of a child.
I wasn't the only one feeling that the whole gathering was somewhat surreal, for when Ef and me left the house for his car, he turned to me and asked, " Was it just me, or did that feel really weird?"


I still feel like a teenager at times, bemused and uncertain of where I'm heading to. And yet the whole world seems to have failed to wait for me to stop and ponder.
As I filled in the copious number of forms for my PR application here, I looked back at the years i've spent away from home and it amazed me how time had flown by. Six years ago, i was the spoilt girl who'd never been away from her family before. Six years on,, I am now a medical doctor, staying by myself, supporting myself independently, planning holidays and ploughing through the alien world of PR application and tax returns. Once where conversation topics revolved around friends, boys and exams, these conversations now turn to finance and work politics, marriage and kids. Friends were getting married, buying houses and starting families.
I feel as though I've just been trust from the role of a kid into the role of an adult, a role which I'm not sure I'm ready to fill. ALthough I know that my experiences have changed me and moulded me somewhat into a hopefully more mature individual, I still feel like the teenager who left home for the first time in 2003 in more ways then one.