Day 1/31st May 2022

The first day of Internship. I was telling my friend how excited and equally scared I was about this new door that is about to open the next day. And it did. I was an intern. Finally! After 4.5 long years of 50% enjoyment and 50% studying, I am finally here. No more exams to worry about. Just a smooth ride incoming. Or that's what I thought?

We were divided into 3 for day shift and 2 for night shift. Sam (name changed) was my partner and she was the best partner i could've asked for. We had to stay till 2 pm and return for night shift at 8 pm. 

The first day... Or rather, the first night of internship was something to remember. I met this 25-26 yr old patient named Patricia (name changed). And the nurses called her Baby Patricia because of the way she talked. She used to sound like a literal baby and she couldn't tolerate any pain even from small injections for test doses. When I talked with her while trying to give her some comfort with my words, she started talking about her life and her native place and all other stuff she could think of. This was kind of new for me because I'm not the interactive kind. I like to keep it crisp and leave it there. Even though I've had patients talk to me like this during history taking, it lasted only for a few mins. But in this case, I had to keep monitoring her the whole night and I felt bad because she was very interactive and I was very aloof?

I learnt a lot of things on the very first day including how to put a venflon, take blood samples from veins, IM IV injections, NST, Contractions, etc. But i guess the bigger lesson was to learn compassion. Is it really needed to be a better doctor? I guess I'll learn soon enough!