7 Shots

This has been an interesting week. Monday was another successful “academic day” with the residents performing in their first ever simulation. Later in the day we bribed the residents with candy for correct answers to their homework assignments. This technique worked very well with avid participation but there was quite a lot of leftover candy (even though I handed out many secretly while Patty was on a quick break from the classroom). The leftover candy is now being used for directional purposes. I have been having trouble finding my way around CHUK (despite being here for 3 weeks now) so Patty leaves trails of candy between the OR building, the ICU, and the maternity suite and I’m able to find my way quite quickly now between each venue.

We had our first patient death this week which is obviously very upsetting. It was a case of a 9 day old 2 kg baby with multiple congenital abnormalities for omphalocele repair. This tiny boy was much too fragile to survive despite our efforts. We’ve discussed the case over and over again and certainly we have learned a lot but I think we’ll sting from this experience for a long time.

This evening I tortured all the residents with a journal club. I think it was pretty successful in the end. The guys picked up some snacks and drinks on their way to our apartment and Patty made a delicious salad. We stressed that the most important point of journal club was the food, and then the actual article. It was great to see everyone making such an effort to work through the paper and hopefully they will continue to host journal clubs in the future.

The picture is from our big night out at the Mongolian Grill. Sender and Emmy joined us. I’m glad they came, mostly for the company… but I would have had trouble carrying Patty home on my own.