Tuesday 6 March 2012

"Am i there yet?" // "The man with the ticking chest"

I was chatting to my friend the other day about how quickly the current firm has gone, in fact there's only 2 weeks until my next ICA (!!), it was then we had a think about August 2014.

Aug 2014, that's the projected month and year i'll start as a FY1, that is .. if everything goes to plan. Then taking Sept 2009 as my starting date at BL, we're 2.5 Years in, just about half way there! WOW time really had just gone by so quickly!!

Now...that's enough day dreaming..and now back to reality...

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The man with the ticking chest

So today was my last trip to the GP practice for my medsoc placement. The GP had organised for us to take a history and examine a cardio patient.

At first glance, it was pretty hard to miss his mid sternotomy scar, it looked a bit red and i'm not sure if he was trying to hint it out to us, but he was itching it quite a bit! So starting at the end of the bed, i rolled into the normal routine, looking for paraphenalia, seeing if the patient was well or unwell, and when i rolled his trousers up from the bottom, i tested for pitting oedema (it was present), and i was off on the hunt for where they've taken out the vein for a bypass graft.... and i couldn't find it.

I admitted to not being able to find it, and then moved on to the rest of the chest examination.. which seemed pretty normal to me......

This was when the GP told me to have a listen. I didn't really know what for exactly, she clearly didn't mean with a stethoscope. She turned the mumbling heater off, and got us to be quiet.. and there it was! A clicking sound, almost like the sound from the clock in a quiet room! I had completely missed it! His midsternotomy scar wasn't for a bypass graft, but for a mechanical aortic valve replacement!!

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Cardio-Respiratory ICA in 2 weeks time!

Cram was meant to start today...

but... i went over to D's for dinner tonight, and after a lot of curry.. i fell into a food coma... !!

.... CRAM STARTS TOMORROW!

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