Accident & Emergency week

I was in the A&E (accident & emergency) deparment of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital (RLUH) from Tue-Fri as part of my course in final year.

why A&E in a hospital? why so far away from the dental area? I could only say it's a requirement for dental students to be attached there for 4 days.

was quite worried the day before, as I have no idea wat so ever I am going to deal with. what kind of medics n staffs are there? the patients etc. would i need to cannulate? would i need 2 do CPR? my anatomy apart from the head and neck, is really really basic.

Well, basically, being there was to observe and see stuffs, to learn from the A&E staffs, and to be like...a nurse ha, well, basically help out with the 5th year medical students. they too struggled at times for IV access, draw bloods and take blood gas; we dental students sometimes struggle with local anaesthesia ( i was, now much improved), struggle with taking tooth out. so, we are at the similar level of the learning curve.

Saw a handful of medical emergencies which was good experience. A stroke pt who cant breathe on her own; an elderly man who was in ventricular tachycardia (VT) who lost consciousness in resus and was shocked and got back into sinus rhythm fortunately. then another elderly woman, whom i was standing in front of her unit, was quite ok when I saw her. Suddenly I heard a wheezing noise, then saw her collapse to her bed. she was moved to resus, had CPR, then shocked, CPR, adrenaline given and then have a pulse back. phew. she wasn't quite well after a detailed examination. very swollen ankles, a sign of severe heart failure n she got a temperature too, so some infection was going on. I guess that was me being closest to see death, in front of me. The medical emergencies were quite an exposure, and I have learnt quite a bit of things from it. hopefully, i do not need 2 manage these cases when I work as a dentist.

having done A&E, I do realise that I have an interest in medicine. i quite enjoyed looking at chest x ray, wrist etc. doing bloods is alright for me too. at the moment, i dont see the point of doing medicine for the near future. holding a dental n medicine degree does make you qualify for maxillo-facial surgery, but that's not what i want to do, i am sure. Oral medicine? hm, a bit too boring for me. doens't seems to do any good holding dental n medicine degree! I know and I want to do Oral Surgery and I don't really need to do medicine for that. but we never know the future, UMS has medicine course, so if I want to do it, it's at home! great! it would be even brilliant if UMS opens a dental school, I can work and teach there!

now, to get back to my normal routine of things, the dental side of things. not going to be as heroic as the A&E medics, but I like doing things around the head n neck more.