the SAN LAZARO HOSPITAL experience

So I've found out that my first rotation was outside MCU, for Infectious Diseases in San Lazaro Hospital, 2 days before the actual clerkship. So I was, wait..uhm pwede wag dyan? wait, di ako ready. di ko kaya. wait lang please. for real ba to? seryoso ba pwede wait lang. shit pwede iba na lang muna? And then tears began to fall. seryoso. I was totally hating that day. I wasn't even ready for the clerkship tapos sa labas pako for the first 2 weeks? wow naman! hello?!   

Anyway, I was totally wrong about it! No one was ready for sure, but everyone is gonna go through it and will eventually learn how to deal with the 'toxicity' of the whole experience. True enough, my first day was the most stressful day of my clerkship so far, but it made me think of ways and means to figure out how to be systematic in my 15 days of stay there. 

Paperwork was one one of the most toxic of the tasks, since it requires handwritten discharge summaries and abstracts. yes dear, handwritten. Aside from that, I was also tasked to perform certain skills I thought I'd never do such as CPR (true pala, I thought sa TV lang haha), IV insertion, NGT insertion, and of course, history and PE. I've also seen a LOT of abnormal Xray results and eventually familiarized myself with how they look if they're infected with TB. Another thing that amazed me was the number of patients who would go there in the wee hours complaining of dog bite. Seriously people, how come you get a dog bite at 3am? Bakit ayaw nyo matulog?! Not only dog bites, but also variety of animals and insects (snakes, cat, centipede, alakdan and some other weird creatures). Aside from those, I was also exposed to infectious diseases (malamang, girl) which I thought only exist in literature. I got to see for real patients with Tetanus, MERS-Cov, Herpes Zoster, TB Meningitis, HIV and a lot of TB! Super amazed and shocked and surprised at the same time!

Day by day, I got used to the the system and ways of the hospital but it took me a week before I got the chance to ask for lunch break. hahahah I used to skip lunch on our 1st week because I didn't know how I could grab meals amidst the toxic schedule. So no lunch for the 1st week. We used to eat a lot and pig out during the afternoon, when duty is over. The schedule we had at San Lazaro was a lot better since we only had 4 night duties for the entire rotation and so we had several times to hang out after. 

But apart from those things, what I really love and miss about San Lazaro Hospital is the warmth and passion of the people that work there. They are all so nice, I almost did not want to go back to MCU. Even until now, I would love to go back there. Kahit walang tulog or lunch or sobrang pagod, everything was worth it. 

And so...that was the San Lazaro effect.