She's So High

Second week down, four more terrible weeks left.

@Nam: Clinical work keeps me from being bored. It just tires me out.

Clinical is falling into a somewhat familiar routine now. Wake up, go clinical, work for free, go home, check email then sleep. Rinse and repeat for another 20 days. I've still got assignments to do this, but it still doesn't change the tediousness of clinical.

6 weeks is a fairly lengthy time for clinicals. The argument for this was that it took students around 6 weeks to become acclimatised to the working environment. Well that may true for your first clinical, but after you have a bit of theory in you and aren't limited to just chests and hand x-rays, you don't need that long. 4 or 5 weeks would be slightly better I think. Still lengthy-ish but not too long.

Actually clinical this week has been a bit frustrating. There are times that I seriously consider enrolling in a Mandarin or Cantonese language course or just screaming (screaming would actually be cheaper). Let me give you an example. Working in Cabra, you mainly get Vietnamese or Chinese speaking patients. Now my Viet is alright, enough that I can get my point across no problem. So there was this guy, Asian person, no Viet, so was either Chinese or some other Asian ethicity. I told him, in English, to take off all his clothes except his underpants and to put on the gown opening to the back. He quietly replied "My English not good." No problem really, I repeat the instructions again, including hand motions and then wait for him to change. So he then walks into the room with the gown put on the wrong way and he's buck naked underneath. So he keeps trying to cover himself up, kinda hard when you have to do a lumber spine x-ray. Now that's one example.

This week I've encountered multiple examples of the above. A good deal of the patients barely understand English, which usually leads to the above stuff happening or me having to manhandle them into position, and them resisting because they can't understand me. Why can't they just learn some basic English? I'm not saying that they should be able to recite Shakespeare or be able to explain the difference between a bare infinitive and a nomical predicative. They just need to be able to understand some basic stuff. Immigrants do a basic English course or something don't they? But fair enough, immigrants have only been here for a short time. So they're going to have trouble with the language. But if you've been living here for upwards of 10 years, then dammit, if I tell you to take all your clothes off except your underpants then you should be able to understand it. I've been lazily studying Viet for maybe 10 years or so and if I was stuck in Vietnam, had an accident and they told me to take off all my clothes except my underpants then I would have no problem understanding that.

Maybe I'm just being impatient or not understanding enough. Maybe it's like an Asian pride thingo, speaking in your own tongue except English, since there's a connection with Vietnamese/Chinese/etc. But since English is the unofficial official language of Australia, with pretty much all your important business conducted in English, isn't it important to be able to communicate on at least a basic level in English?

Seriously I was browsing through some Mandarin language courses during clinical. It might actually better if I get some basic knowledge of another language since it would just save time overall. I've heard this story that some guy basically misunderstood what the radiographer was saying and walked out of the changing cubicle totally naked. Now that is something that you don't want to happen, especially at a private practice with other patients looking on.

At least there's a NYE party being organisied by my uni friends. So there's something to look forward to when clinical ends.

Streetlights

So first week of clinical has finished, and it felt like 6 weeks already.

That's the bad thing about doing your clinical at private practice is that you end up doing more work than learning. After a week or two you know how to fill the paperwork, what projections and where to put stuff, so the last 3 to 4 weeks is just grinding through the work. So for the past 2 days I've pretty much been going through the motions in automatic, like chest x-rays I can do them blindfolded (metaphorically speaking, of course). On Wednesday, it was all me holding down the general x-ray fort for an hour and a half. The general radiographer had to go help in CT, so it wall me by my lonesome. I think that was the hardest I've ever worked on a clinical.

Now I'm procrastinating over making my costume stuff for my friend's 21st tomorrow. It's just a bit of cutting and pasting, which is probably why I'm procrastinating since it's fairly easy to do. I'm planning to dress as a Navy Admiral, like this:
...since it's less work than trying to do this:
...and cheaper over all as well.

Far out I'm tired. Working 8 hours a day for no pay is pretty tiring. At least the full radiographers are getting something for all their hard work. Experience can only go so far. I might just go to sleep early. Here's a little movie trailer. Looks pretty awesome.

“Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky”

- Alan Moore