The weekend arrived, and with it, the promise of another delicious food market. With significantly less parking drama we made it to the food hall of Neighbourgood's market and OH MY GOD THERE WAS SO MUCH FOOD. The place reminded me of Camden food market but compressed in to one large room and it smelt INCREDIBLE. There were types of food from all over the world and even an oyster and champagne stool to give us May Ball feels.
Riki and I living our best life - Riki found this apple pie flavoured drink and would NOT shut up about it
Manu made ultimate use of the free samples
Much excitement for the ice cream
Feeling like we'd eaten about 3 meals worth of food (probably because we did...) and now very content we headed back home to catch a few hours of zzzzzz before our first night shift. Topped up on as much sleep as we could and kitted out in our new heavy duty uni of Witz scrubs, pockets filled to the brim with tourniquets, gloves, swabs and cannulas (Or jelcos as they call them here - I asked someone what size cannula to put in at some point in the night and the look of distrust and confusion I received meant it is a mistake I will not quickly be making again) we set off. The night was fairly civilised to begin with, but before long the floodgates to the drunk and disorderly of the Joburg populace opened. We based ourselves in the pit for most of the evening so were subjected to the full force of the inebriated throng - in resus on the other hand people are generally (but not always) too sick to be kicking up much of a fuss. For the first few hours we were either clerking these new patients or doing basic practical skills which for this patient group mostly involved putting them on 'jet fuel' - a bag of fluids with some added glucose, thiamine, B12 and magnesium sulphate which acquires a distinctive pink colour hence the name - apparently it does wonders in sobering up drunk people. A big moment for me came when my many practices on pig skin could finally be put in to real world use when I finished my first full suture on an actual person.
When you finish your first full suture and are V proud - and yes I did get permission to take and distribute the photo - don't send the GMC after me. Pls.
Other highlights of the night included:
- When a new patient came in slumped in a wheel chair and continuously kept sliding on to the floor in to a growing pool of his own blood, the main comment from the surrounding doctors was 'Don't worry, just leave him on the floor... he was only shot in the arm'. It was 'only' a through and through wound which I later bandaged up - first time for everything ey!
- A very drunk man who had multiple gaping stab wounds asking 'Can't I just go home like this?'. Despite these horrific wounds (ask me for pictures if you're curious, I had to take some to prove to him he couldn't just go home) he was an absolute pansy when it came to giving him local anaesthetic.
- The Alex and Riki bromance reaching new heights when in a frantic rush to finish all jobs before handover at 7am we were simultaneously suturing different wounds on the back of the same pansy mentioned above.
Post night shift feels
A few hours of sleep later and we were back on the road to Bara for our second night. This was significantly quieter than the previous but was in no way short of interesting and bizarre cases - we've actually already started getting desensitised so have had to start writing these down immediately otherwise they don't stand out enough to be remembered. Prime example when discussing some new patients: 'Hey didn't that multiple stab wounds need some bloods doing? No no that's the other multiple stab wounds. Oh wait no silly me he ONLY had one stab wound.' Not sure this is a conversation that ever really happens in the UK.
One picture that I'm not going to forget in a hurry was one man who came in with a history of a stabbed back and was chilling out in resus happy as larry. See below for the 'Oh sh*t' chest x-ray.
Apologies for the picture quality, but with the eye of faith you can just about make out the pointy object sitting below this guys liver that should defo not be there
A low point came in the night at approximately 4am when we went to the tuck shop just outside the ward to get some much needed chips. These had apparently been a life line to many students that had come before us. Salivating at the thought of those golden fried morsels of deliciousness our hearts sank at the sight of the guy running the place slumped on the counter and totally unrousable. GCS 7. In the immortal words of Donald Trump - 'SAD'.
Box I found lying on the side in the doctor's tea room - significantly less comfortable about touching the surfaces in this room now
Phew. First night shift successfully completed and after adequate rest and recuperation we're planning a little road trip to a local mountain range for a hike. Please wait with a-baited breath for the pretty scenery pics.
Riki and I living our best life - Riki found this apple pie flavoured drink and would NOT shut up about it
Manu made ultimate use of the free samples
Much excitement for the ice cream
Feeling like we'd eaten about 3 meals worth of food (probably because we did...) and now very content we headed back home to catch a few hours of zzzzzz before our first night shift. Topped up on as much sleep as we could and kitted out in our new heavy duty uni of Witz scrubs, pockets filled to the brim with tourniquets, gloves, swabs and cannulas (Or jelcos as they call them here - I asked someone what size cannula to put in at some point in the night and the look of distrust and confusion I received meant it is a mistake I will not quickly be making again) we set off. The night was fairly civilised to begin with, but before long the floodgates to the drunk and disorderly of the Joburg populace opened. We based ourselves in the pit for most of the evening so were subjected to the full force of the inebriated throng - in resus on the other hand people are generally (but not always) too sick to be kicking up much of a fuss. For the first few hours we were either clerking these new patients or doing basic practical skills which for this patient group mostly involved putting them on 'jet fuel' - a bag of fluids with some added glucose, thiamine, B12 and magnesium sulphate which acquires a distinctive pink colour hence the name - apparently it does wonders in sobering up drunk people. A big moment for me came when my many practices on pig skin could finally be put in to real world use when I finished my first full suture on an actual person.
When you finish your first full suture and are V proud - and yes I did get permission to take and distribute the photo - don't send the GMC after me. Pls.
Other highlights of the night included:
- When a new patient came in slumped in a wheel chair and continuously kept sliding on to the floor in to a growing pool of his own blood, the main comment from the surrounding doctors was 'Don't worry, just leave him on the floor... he was only shot in the arm'. It was 'only' a through and through wound which I later bandaged up - first time for everything ey!
- A very drunk man who had multiple gaping stab wounds asking 'Can't I just go home like this?'. Despite these horrific wounds (ask me for pictures if you're curious, I had to take some to prove to him he couldn't just go home) he was an absolute pansy when it came to giving him local anaesthetic.
- The Alex and Riki bromance reaching new heights when in a frantic rush to finish all jobs before handover at 7am we were simultaneously suturing different wounds on the back of the same pansy mentioned above.
Post night shift feels
A few hours of sleep later and we were back on the road to Bara for our second night. This was significantly quieter than the previous but was in no way short of interesting and bizarre cases - we've actually already started getting desensitised so have had to start writing these down immediately otherwise they don't stand out enough to be remembered. Prime example when discussing some new patients: 'Hey didn't that multiple stab wounds need some bloods doing? No no that's the other multiple stab wounds. Oh wait no silly me he ONLY had one stab wound.' Not sure this is a conversation that ever really happens in the UK.
One picture that I'm not going to forget in a hurry was one man who came in with a history of a stabbed back and was chilling out in resus happy as larry. See below for the 'Oh sh*t' chest x-ray.
Apologies for the picture quality, but with the eye of faith you can just about make out the pointy object sitting below this guys liver that should defo not be there
A low point came in the night at approximately 4am when we went to the tuck shop just outside the ward to get some much needed chips. These had apparently been a life line to many students that had come before us. Salivating at the thought of those golden fried morsels of deliciousness our hearts sank at the sight of the guy running the place slumped on the counter and totally unrousable. GCS 7. In the immortal words of Donald Trump - 'SAD'.
Box I found lying on the side in the doctor's tea room - significantly less comfortable about touching the surfaces in this room now
Phew. First night shift successfully completed and after adequate rest and recuperation we're planning a little road trip to a local mountain range for a hike. Please wait with a-baited breath for the pretty scenery pics.
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