First week MO

First week MO...
Just realised that I was soooo used to not using my brain during work as a houseman.
Repeatedly put HO instead of MO on my case notes.
Keep on answering the nurses when they are calling for the houseman in ward.
Striving hard to remember my patients' names and faces, and to understand their mental state.
And why do patients keep on nagging when they first see a new doctor?

In the wards, you just feel that schizophrenia is a disastrous disease.
But in the OPDs, you realise how miraculous antipsychotics can sometimes be (well, the RIGHT one with the RIGHT dosage).
Depressive and manic patients can become better. (Though you expect relapses)
Generally, there IS hope.

It is very devastating to think about the twentieth change in antipsychotic for the same schizophrenic patient especially when I have just taken up this case for a few days. I know absolutely nothing about antipsychotics except that it's some kind of pill for psychotic patients.

And even more devastating to think about the coming Team Round tomorrow at 10am. My first team round. Defence mechanism already coming up -- Avoidance. Preoccupation with unrelated matters. SHIT.

So this is the first week on the start of becoming a psychiatrist.
Pathetic. (Lots of negative cognition, you would say, right?)

Registration

Today is not the day of reunion, nor the day of strike. Today is the day of oath.

Hippocratic Oath
-- Modified in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.


Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.