Wrapping up my first patient

In the pharmacy today I was called out to help dress the wounds of a patient. The patient was an gentleman in his 60s who fell over in his garden whilst gardening. He landed on a brick and grazed his forearm.

A prickly situation

While at work today, my colleague took in a bag full of used diabetes needle tips from a patient. He didn't bring them in a yellow sharps bin, instead put them into a brown paper bag. Whilst my colleague was putting the tips into our large needle bin, a needle broke through the bag and pricked her finger.

An unexpected reading

While at work today, a pharmacy assistant calls me to assist a gentleman. She tells me that he brought in a blood glucose machine and seems to have problems with it.

The gentleman has not been using his monitor for a few months, and wanted me to have a look at it to see if it was still working fine. As he did a test, instead of displaying a reading, his meter prompted: "HIGH KETONES".

Hmm...

As I looked through his previous test results (done earlier this morning) I see that his readings were 27.8mmol/L! As a reference, blood glucose readings above 10mmol/L could be counted as uncontrolled. This patient was OFF THE CHARTS!

After asking the patient about his diabetes medications, I find that he has not been taking his medications for a while. He was constantly experiencing dryness in his mouth, and has also been going frequently to the bathroom. I guess those were signs that his body was telling him his diabetes was out of control.

I tried to reinforce to the patient the importance to see his doctor and get it under control. However the patient had his excuses and reasons why he didn't take his medication and why he doesn't want to see the doctor yet.

While it is my job to look out for the patient's well being, there is only so much I can do other than give him suggestions.

In the end, the patient went on with his daily life. I doubt he would have gone to see his doctor.

August 29th

Med school interviews come out tomorrow! (I think...?)

Hope it comes with good news!


Update:
ANU med school has given me an interview opportunity!
Yey?

I'm both stoked and shocked. Stoked because last year I got nothing. Shocked because I was expecting Melbourne or Griffith!

The importance of sunscreen

             

As we live in the Sunshine State (Queensland, Australia), it is important to be aware of the dangers of the sun and how to protect our skin from it.

The sun gives us a lot of things: warmth, light and life. However the sun can also give us skin cancers, premature aging and sun burns when we expose our bare skins too long underneath its glorious rays.

A measure of courage

What would you do if you see a person bleeding from the head walk towards you? Would you call out to him to offer him help? Or would you avoid him and walk on by.

What if this person had been beaten half to death by an angry gang, and you find out they are hunting him to finish the job. Would you still try to help him?

I believe our choices in these situations define who we are. Our decisions are made in a split-second as we encounter the situation. I would have chose to walk on by and pretend nothing happened. This makes me a coward. However when my brother told me he stayed to help the man, I was really proud of him.

Last night on his way home, my brother encountered a man bleeding profusely from the head. As the man walked towards him, he could see that half of the man's face was swollen. My brother decided to stop and help the man straight away. After enquiring about the situation, he found out that the guy was beaten up because he taunted a group of New Zealanders. He managed to get away, but they were still trying to find him and beat him up some more.

Although the guy may have been an ass, he still needed medical attention. My brother called an ambulance and waited with the guy for it to come. While they were waiting, he saw the gang walk down the street. He hid the guy behind a tree, and mislead the gang in a different direction. 

As the ambulance did not come after 20 minutes, he called a cab and took him to the hospital himself. He then walked himself home after leaving the guy in the emergency ward. 

From this situation, my brother demonstrated tremendous courage and compassion. I think he went beyond his duty to care for the person. I admire how he handled the situation, and I am proud to be his brother.  

Vets, doctors and pharmacists

My best friend is vet student in his final year. It is interesting to hear him talk about his field of expertise, work stories and surgical cases. I find it refreshing as the stories he tells are still within the realm of medicines, however completely foreign from the pharmacy setting.

Listening to his anecdotes I feel that vet students are pretty much the same as medical students. They both need to learn pathophysiology of disease, diagnostics, and also the medicines to treat. They both have too much to learn, never enough time to do so thus leading to practically no social time left over. None the less, we try to make time to catch up and talk about random things.

One thing I learnt from him was that cats cannot tolerate paracetamol. This is because they lack an enzyme causing toxic metabolites of paracetamol to build up in their body!