Paediatric OSCE

Have I told you how much I love OSCEs? No? Well, not so much. But I love how they generate the most hilarious memories ever.

Day Uno: Too Much Oxygen Good or Bad?

Before the FU FUN FUN part begins, a tip for you all: BREATH!

At lock down, I did my yoga breathing to help me relax. Not only did it do that but I became a bit giddy and euphoric. And so when I heard the musical bell that declares the end of a station for the girls who were being examined, I thought it sounded a lot like Fairouz's song Dahlak Ya Tair Al Wrwar and started singing. That opened the door for more Fairouz and a lot of drunk singing and laughing. A bunch of girls dropped everything and tuned in for the pre-exam entertainment. I was a star.

Then was the actual exam. It wasn't great but al 7mdullah it went smoothly. At one station, I think the purpose of it was to get pissed off by the patient's irrational fears and try to calmly reassure them. It wasn't really irritating or anything but the doctor somehow was VERY impressed with me. After I finished talking to the patient, she asked how would I evaluate myself and being in the KAUH environment when you are always looked at as the idiot student, I couldn't possibly say I was freaking brilliant. I criticized my shaky Arabic and failure to answer one irrelevant question. The doctor then interrupted, telling me how perfect I was and how she didn't even need to interfere and guide me then she moved on to my "great English" and asked if I studied abroad? I said no and the credit goes to my mom cuz she's an English teacher who taught me since infancy. Then she was mesmerized by mom and kept asking all random questions about her. Who could blame her? My mom is amazing. But then the bell rang and I had to beg to please let me go.

At the history station, we were to ask a pretend dad -the intern- about his kid who has sickle cell anemia. The thing about this intern is that he is... I honestly can't find a word to describe him. He kept smiling, turning and fussing and giving lame answers in a very blah tone. Well, Mr. if you can't take this seriously, I sure as hell can't and I could match your tone and double it too. And that is what I did. Plus he was wearing cherry red lip balm, as I was.

While taking a history you should analyse the patient's chief complain then proceed to other things. I, being the amazing diagnostician that I am -Yes, House got nothing on me- didn't! The father told me his son has leg pain and I automatically thought it was a vasso-occlusive crisis. Which it was but still I needed to explore the pain even more. I now realize that the intern was actually nice as he tried to help me by mentioning the leg pain twice and I was like yeah you said that, moving on. Stupid me but what is an OSCE station if you didn't forget a thing or three? :P

Day Dos: You Never Know What You Have Until You Lose it.

Day two and another history taking session. This time hematuria. Let me first just say how much I love Nephrology and point to the fact that I KNOW hematuria. I feel so ashamed. I once again figured out the diagnosis too early and all other reasons totally blanked. I knew there was so much more to explore but I just couldn't. And this new intern/father was really into playing the role of the concerned dad. And he kept putting a sweet encouraging smile but when I tried wiggling out a clue or two about what should I ask he was such an ass. Where is yesterday's intern? He would have helped. I wanted to cry LOL.

Next station was the doctor who though I was fascinating. When I started examining the patient, she kept yelling "mashallah, mashallah ma bdy a7sdik you are so good and organized" and she didn't pay attention to what I was doing and then asked me to please repeat =_=

The 2 other stations were lovely. Run by two amazing nephrologists. God I love those people.

Man this OSCE wasn't really funny ha? Well thank God it's over. Wish me luck on the written and inactive OSCE. :)