I Miss Surgery!

Not that I don't like my Pedia rotation. My junior consultants are swell and most of the visiting consultants are fine, even Dra. Amante (during our JI days, we tremble in her presence). It's just that, I missed the jestering surgeons at the OR, the tip-toe action at the ER, and most of all, the good night sleep at the On Call Room. Pedia is like a mini-Internal Medicine. The difference is longer patient histories to write and perhaps more extensive physical examinations to perform. Not to mention, a lot of pedia doses for drugs to calculate. I have always found a hard time in Pediatrics, even during my med school days. God must have noticed this so He decided perhaps to schedule me a Pediatric Case for my Grand Rounds this August. Grand Rounds is where you present a case and different consultants from various departments come to criticise your presentation. In other words, Grand Rounds is where you are eaten up alive. I would have loved it if I would present a Surgical Case for my grand rounds.

So, here's a compromise. I have chosen a Pediatric Case for my grand rounds. How's that?

Anyway, this morning, I was guest speaker during the launching of the nutrition month at my alma mater, USLS-IS. It was the shortest talk I had infront of the largest audience I ever had. The entire covered court was filled with high school students. I was supposed to talk about good nutrition so it was a good thing a podium was provided so I could hide my still unresolving chubby belly despite days of jogging and biking.

I have just opened my email and I received an email from a cousin of mine who is currently studying in the United States. She is perhaps the smartest person I have ever known. Excerpts from her email.

"I read your blog too.bweheehehehe. I see you also hand out prescription for the "heart". =) But hey! People die of broken heart, right? I'm gonna have a long talk with you, when I come home. Maybe you can solve my "heart" problems...or the lack of it. =) Seriously though, I think compassion is so rare these days (not just in the medical profession...the academe has become so desensitized. scientists/professors don't see people anymore...they just see data. so sad). That's why i'm always happy to note when people see people....and for doctors like yourself...not just (ailing) bodies. =).

"I'm at the lab right now...staring at the blue lines...waiting for peaks. =) I'm doing enantiomer separation. don't know how extensive organic chemistry has to be for medical students...but in a nutshell, what I'm doing is stereochemical isolation of enantiomers and I then run toxicity assay to see if there is enantioselectivity in their effects to non-target species. my never-ending source of frustration lately...getting it to give me measurable endocrine disruption (reproductive toxicity) effect. You're probably more familiar with enantiopure drugs. It's something like that, only enantiopure pesticides are not as popular yet...but the effects are just as enantioselective. I guess people just don't care as much, because it's more an environment issue than a human issue (you know, as Al Gore points out it's an "inconvenient truth."...and unfortunantely, not much else to most people.).

My Mechanisms of Toxicity professor (the toughest class i've ever had in my life!) told me that he used to work in my field (ecotoxicology), but he found that it's hard to get funded because people don't care as much for the environment as they do for themselves. So now he switched to human toxicology and cancer research. He said, in cancer research...people are begging you to take their money. Isn't that sad?"

Chemistry, like Pediatrics, isn't my cup of tea either. I had fun during my biochemistry though in my pre-med days. I used to top chem quizzes especially those which require you to balance chemical equation. Forgot the term (Manang Bingbing, help!)but it's fun to balance these chemical equations.

Good Luck in your exams, Manang BingBing! And don't forget my chocolates this December ;-)