Elective - days 9& 10

Day 9

Today I was in vascular surgery. The anaesthetic stuff went quite well and I got to do a couple of venflons and intubations.

One of the registrars also told me a really simple way to look at blood gases and pH and work out whether a patient had an acidosis or alkalosis and whether it is respiratory or metabolic. If is a very simple 4 step approach which no text book has but it works very well. All in all it was a useful way to spend the 3 hours of the second operation; during the first one we had gone over ECG patterns and the pyramid of analgesia.

Day 10

Today I was back in ICU. This entailed following a ward round which was very interesting, as in the case of 4 of the 6 patients, the doctors had no idea what was actually wrong with the patients, nor why some of their biochemistry was so disordered. i also spoke to the ICU staff about the possibility of doing an SSM there - I need to send an email this weekend!

There is one day of my elective left, next Tuesday, as I have the Wednesday off for revision for the exams on Thursday and Friday.