Back to Reality

It feels like I have just gotten back from holidays, and now another rotation – medical specialties – is upon us. I have been allocated to the specialties of infectious diseases and geriatrics – four weeks each.

For the next four weeks, I am with the infectious diseases team. Today starts with ward rounds. After a year of being in a laid-back regional hospital, the intensity of the ward round at this major metropolitan hospital just smacks me right in the face – no small talk, it’s all business. The consultant and her entourage – all ten of us registrars, residents, a nurse, a pharmacist, and us medical students – move like an amebic organism from room to room and from ward to ward. We swarm each bed, spreading ourselves out to surround it, throw medical jargons at each other as if we are speaking in code, and occasionally involve the patient in the discussion by offering them a brief translation of our treatment plans. Afterwards, we ooze out of the room, shuffle down the hall, and slither down the stairs to the next unsuspecting patient in a distant ward.

Compared to the kinds of infectious diseases I saw on my elective, the ones here are fairly tame – MRSA, VRE, and an occasional necrotizing fasciitis – at least in terms of getting appetite-suppressing photos. With all the powerful antibiotics at the doctors’ disposal, many of these infections are brought under control quickly. It’s like in Zambia, they are fighting a war with little pistols whereas here, they can have the latest heat-seeking missiles at a moment’s notice. And here at the infectious diseases ward is where the eternal battle between nasty bugs and man’s ingenuity is fought. We are always trying to stay one step ahead of the bugs by finding their Achilles’ Heel and exploiting their vulnerability. On the other hand, the bugs are always mutating in an unpredictable way for survival under the evolutionary pressure from the drugs we throw at them. At the moment, we have the upper hand.

But I wonder for how much longer.