Bangil in 7 days (Part II)

Fifth day in Bangil – "Hari Natal yang Fatal", it was Christmas. Nah, I don't get public holiday. We started quite late in the morning, all wards seemed so calm. I went back into the office to fill in the report, few seconds after I landed myself, I was jolted by a howl of cries. Two girls came running into the office and told us that their father was still. We ran towards his bed and… yea, there was my 2^nd death declaration – no fainted family members.

The evening, was another death case due to septic shock. The patient was already on a very bad condition and was put on our high observation, however she couldn't make it through, even after a few resuscitation. There was my 3^rd death declaration – everyone was calm as we already made them to expect any form of bad news.

That evening, we went to town and had sate kambing! I'm not that much of a mutton person, but the muttons were finger licking good!

Sixth day in Bangil – Back to our normal morning 'workout'. Well, not exactly a workout, but ground ward round was just too exhausting that I could excrete a liter of sweat after rounding all 40 over patients in 8 wards. Cape deh~

It was one of the busiest day. We had 9 new patients came in. Mostly with chronic kidneys and heart failures. Hmm…

I started to be fond of the working situation in Bangil. The nurses are the nicest most polite nurses I've ever met, two thumbs up! As intern, I was treated so kindly, better than how the residents here (in our teaching hospital) got treated. Every treatment outside working hour was totally on our responsibility, even for a simple fever, the nurses would consult us. They may not be as effective and intelligent as the nurses here, but they are efficient and I am very happy to be apart of the team.

The patients and their family are the friendliest too (thought I got lost in translation often). There were patients who are remarkably pleased just to see us walking in the ward. Some patients just want to be observed often, some patients who complain of dyspnea, back to breathing normally when I just put on my stethoscope and say everything is fine. They are much of psychological pain indeed. They need the touch of a person in white coat I reckon…

One of the devastation of working there is merely from the emergency department. They sent in patients with funny diagnoses and most of the time their ridiculous diagnoses don't match with the physical examination neither correspond to the lab findings. Ngak nyambung banget!! Sebel!

Seventh day in Bangil – The paranoia of hearing the phone ring is about to over. I survived 7 days of being traumatized everytime I hear my phone rings as I was on a total-on-call for 24 hours for the 7 days. The second last call was at 3 in the morning. Patient complained of dyspnea and fever. Nothing much we could do to help, but to wait for her blood transfusion. The very last call was at 5:30am, the same patient died.

So this is what you get when you call up a doctor at 3a.m - badan tembam, muka sembam, baju tidur busuk dan berslipper jepun.

I wished I could stay longer. I like the working environment, and it was stressful to think that I had to go back working in Malang. No offence, but comparing working in a reference center and a district hospital, I prefer to be in the district. Despite of the lack of facilities, the teamwork is fairer and the affection is stronger. Unlike in here, although there are a lot of medical staffs, everyone seem to depend on everyone else, responsibilities are passed from hand to hand and it makes the tense more to a nerve-racking. I am looking forward to next 2 years where I'll be sent to puskesmas (public health center at the rurals), I bet it'll be better!p.s: I'd like to wish my cousin Yazmin Yusoff congratulations on your marriage! So sad I couldn't be around. Sob.. sob…