How To Survive Your OB-Gyne, Pediatrics and Ophthalmology Internship Rotations

Internship Objectives

Obstetrics and Gynecology

At the end of the month, an intern is expected:

1. To be able to run as fast as your black shoes can get you as you wheel the stretcher with the pregnant mother with the crowning baby to the DR.
2. To be able to transform magically in less than a minute from your uniform to your scrubsuit and vice versa.
3. To be able to retract the bladder for three hours or more using the same force, despite the lack of sleep, the eyes that can’t seem to keep themselves open and the hyperglycemia from not having anything in your stomach except for water during your 24 hour duty.
4. To be able to have the patience of a saint when explaining to G1 patients that a 2 cm dilated cervix doesn’t mean you’re going to have your baby right now, or that an induced delivery doesn’t mean it’s going to be less painful, or that just because you’re so tired, doesn’t mean you have to stop pushing or that you can choose to have your baby delivered via CS. You are not in a private hospital.
5. To be able to grow 10 hands and be at three places at one time as you IE one patient, make the history of another, admit another patient, call the lab for your stat CBC, secure blood for your CS patient at the blood bank, deliver the baby in the DR and assist in the TAHBSO at the OR.
6. To be able to pray for a miracle that one will pass Kong’s post-rotation exam.

Pediatrics

At the end of the month, an intern is expected:

1. To be able to keep yourself from screaming obscenities when you are barraged with mothers in the ER bringing in their children because of 1 day colds, or severe weakness due to diarrhea when the child is happily playing and smiling at you, or two-week history of cough and fever and the child looks like he’s practically in his deathbed, at 2 o’ clock in the morning.
2. To be able to juggle carrying two babies, both with O2 face mask, and look after another intubated one carried by his mother, and not trip nor stumble, so as to manage time efficiently when bringing in NICU babies for X-ray.
3. To be able to fight the hypoglycemia and the dehydration. Let’s face it. You will not be able to eat nor drink anything.
4. To be able to charm your way with the medtechs and the radio technicians, particularly, to avoid giving your cellphone number, in order to get what you want from them, such as giving you priority and faster service (I miss you, my curly-haired medtech na parang hanger ang katawan. Where the hell are you?).
5. To be able to supply the correct answer to Doc BJ and Doc Balido’s bedside rounds questions whose answers we were apparently and supposedly already knew, like the gastric capacity of a 5-month old baby, the actual caloric content of Bear Brand, Al-110, Simelac and S-26, the rationale of giving folic acid to your AGE patients and cross-infection of Dengue and Malaria. Heller! Like you already knew that when you were interns back in 19kopong-kopong.
6. To be able to look like you were not from duty, when you actually are from duty.

3. Ophthalmology

At the end of the month, an intern is expected:

1. To be able to shell out your hard-earned savings and feed the department at the end of your rotation.
2. To be able to assist in the OR by turning on the airconditioner, searching for plaster, preparing the gloves in the prep table, looking for stuff in your resident’s tool box, opening the vent of the IV and holding his cellphone as he makes an intra-op referral to his senior resident. That’s about it.
3. To be able to see something abnormal during a funduscopic examination. Seriously, I’ve never seen one. I only say “Yeah, I see it,” when the truth is, I can only see blood vessels and ¼ of the freakin’ fundus. The trick is not to look like you don’t know shit.
4. To be able to use those skills you learned playing family computer back in Grade 3 when maneuvering the slit lamp or the refraction machine.
5. To be able to pretend you don’t notice that Ma’am Pilar and Doc Vanessa are not speaking to each other and to have the tact and sensibility not to ask either one of them about it. Deadma, ika nga.
6. To be able to suture a patient’s eyelid without poking her eyeball with your needle.
7. To be able to avoid answering the “Ms. Top 1, ano nga ba yung…” questions without looking like you don’t know anything at all.


The rest of the objectives for the other rotations will be given as soon as this intern finishes her rotation in the other departments and is able to find the time to squeeze important Friendster blogging time in her very busy schedule.