Reflections of an Intern: Clinical patient encounters

摘要

It was a Friday night, the end of a week—a tiring one, even for me, as an intern. I could only imagine the weariness of the residents who had been in the hospital day in and day out. The ritual began with the arrival of the senior resident in charge of the emergency for the night. The patient handover was something I always looked forward to, for it gave me an opportunity to test my own clinical knowledge and provided me with a list of topics to read. Standing at the back, as I hurriedly noted down the cases I had seen for the first time, the senior resident listened to each patient's action plans, nodding silently from time to time. A short while later, a young girl was wheeled in by her father. The father's voice sounded familiar. I looked back and there she was, perhaps the last person I would have wanted to see in the hospital emergency again. The girl lay almost unconscious and her breathing was laboured. As her father spoke about her illnesses to the resident, I began jogging my memory.