Sunday, February 17, 2008

i passed! with a B in pathology :) am incredibly happy and thankful on this score!

now, with the ghost of pathology safely behind me (but please don't let me forget too much!) i can safely concentrate on my internal medicine reposting. whew.

i managed to completely fabricate a pneumonia case yesterday - meaning, i knew the diagnosis but couldn't find any signs except shallow breathing, so i made up my own signs of dullness, crackles and increased vocal resonance. i managed to fool my tutor rather well, i must say. he was quite pleased!
unfortunately, this cannot continue if i'm to have any hope of passing my final exams. it simply won't do.

i'm going to be more hardworking and look for people to examine and clerk (a little hard when i don't speak the same language!), and stop going home so early. granted, reading is good, and it IS what my tutor is telling us to do, but at the same time, clinical skills cannot be totally neglected, yes? :)

hope all of you had a brilliant valentine's! :)

2 comments:

The Shrink said...

Well done on getting through pathology.

In fairness, percussion and auscultation of lungs takes oodles of time. What are vesicular breath sounds? What does count as crackles. You hear breathing when they inspire, so is that stridor?

Until you've heard oodles of lungs it can't start to come together, soI'd not panic on this front. Your thoughts are sound - thinking what should be there and looking for it.

Enough chests, focussing on what you're looking for, and it should all start to come together nicely :-)

jysika said...

:)