Skills....

This has been a week of firsts.....................

• My first pleuritic tap...maybe next time my hand won't shake so much..... and the patient will have less excess soft tissue so I can feel the top of the rib - the tap needle must go along the top of the rib not the bottom because the neuro-vascular bundle runs along the bottom of the rib.
• My first 12 lead ECG which I managed to set up, record and then have a go at analysing myself....though I did need some leading through it. ECG's are one of my bogey areas.
• My first Arterial blood gases (sterile procedures) and blood cultures.
• My first dead body in a mortuary...technically it is my second, since I saw a PM during my BSc Honours year in 2004, but this was the first where I had known /met the patient.

Many of the patients this week seem to be either very, very sick, or alternatively just bobbing along getting better slowly...more to follow later.