this and that

When I was four I remember wanting to be a nurse. Id play sick and id play being a patient and my imaginary friend being the nurse who took care of me. I thought it was really neat to be one since you got to poke needles in to people and comfort them when they were in pain. When I was about 10 the thought disappeared with sudden development of needle phobia and haemophobia. And I got adapted to a personality that was well away from health care or related.

Luck is not always in our way. When I got nominated and selected for a scholarship to study I accepted it. Not because I wanted to do this course but because it was the first one I got, my mother choice and I really wanted to get away. My mother thought since I was so interested in photography id give radiography a shot too. And here I am in a small college in the East Asia studying to be a radiographer.

The first semester ended and I was one of the few distinction students, duh the stuff was very easy like most of the first semesters are. Then came the second semester and I had to go on my very first clinical practice to a public hospital here in Malaysia, HKL (Hospital Kuala Lumpur). Never ever being a staff at any hospitals ever before in my life it was both frightening and an adventure. The procedures I were to be assessed were simple one but not when in a clinical situation. Most staffs and students forget about the pain the patient might be in. it I suppose happens with time when one gets more experienced and start to care less about what the other patient feels and become more selfish.

We were warned by our seniors about ill treatment and harsh words that we might receive from our supervisors. I had heard both my lecturers and fellow peers talking ill of the place and the technicians there. But I was more worried about screwing up, and hurting a patient than I was worried about the harsh words, after all its sticks and stones that really hurt and words of wisdom, lessons learnt that lingers forever.

My one month of experience turned me around from hating health care workers to loving the whole of it. though I was sure I had moved away from the hospital personality years ago it was like I could do it. all of it. then I started to wonder whether I should have sticked to my old idea of becoming a nurse rather than letting that one go because of some phobia that I still need to work on.

Working there I learnt a lot, you don’t get all u study from sitting in a room digesting spoonfuls of exams questions and answers your lecturers feed you before the exams. It’s the experience, the work that makes you good at what you do. I had bad days and I had really good days. I took each praise I received as an award and each scolding and mistake as a lesson. Unfortunately for me the techs there were all Malaysian and could barely speak English. They either neglected and ignored me or made fun of my frustration of not understanding them. My biggest encouragement came from two people, one of them who refused to help me because I didn’t speak English and because I didn’t have XY chromosome. (it is considered a SHE MALE). The other was the HOD. The she/he person was rude, always scolding the students and didn’t care less if we were in tears or not. But after some effort and pestering I got in to its lab coat and achieved the chance of learning.

It was one of the best radiographers in the department. Very much like the Dr. Cox from scrubs. He is a good doctor with a bad attitude. Anyways my point is that I heard a lot of people talk ill of these two people I learnt so much from that I realized they didn’t really know what was happening. The strictest of them all are the best teachers there most of the time. You nurses, techs, and doctors to be learn to cope with the ill tempered mean ass of a supervisors who teach you rather than admire and love those who treat you nice and covers your mistake, they aren’t doing you a favor.

p/s I know this was piece of completely useless piece I wrote just because I wanted to update my blog.