i woke up this morning to a huge straits times article on senior specialists leaving the public sector to set up a private practice. frankly, i don't know what to make of it, since i'm only in first year and i don't even own a stethoscope. but i was reminded of someone's comment made several days ago, that seventy percent of doctors eventually regret their career choice. granted, it was uttered by someone who isn't even in medicine at all, but, what am i supposed to make of all this? have we chosen the wrong path? but i guess we cross a bridge when we come to one, so i shall kiv this topic for now.


have finished reading intern blues, which is the true story of three pediatric interns in a major new york hospital. throughout their internship year, they recorded on tape snippets of their lives. interesting and an eye opener. what caught my attention however was a passage stating how women have to overcome stereotyping as doctors. since the nurses are women, some might not like to take orders from women doctors, and no one took the female intern in the book seriously though she was as good as any of the guys. guess what? i've experienced that too, twice in fact, people asking me when they see me studying anatomy on the train, going to be a nurse? and i've got to tell them, no, i'm doing me-di-cine.


dr yip brought us to see two heart failure cases for the last ics session on thursday. both had some sort of mechanical valve, and you know, it's a queer thing to listen to their hearts. instead of a strong dub-dub-dub (or lub-dup as the textbooks say) you hear dub-dub then a whir. one of the patients had a rather quick heart rate and that sounded amazing. oh well, right now, all the heart sounds are pretty much the same to me. everyone's telling us, you'll learn it in third year, so all the heart sounds i've heard so far are all mixed up. eeks.


and pULSE is out! get your free copy from the borrowing counter at the library! feedback and suggestions can be sent to medwelco[at]gmail.com. or, if you're too lazy, just tag a comment here. =)