Clinical years

Alhamdulillah, I’ve made it to the 4th year. Did I? I think so. No one ever told me anything. Or not that I want ‘anything’ to happen.

Anyway, like most of you have known (eceh, cam ramai je orang bace blog merepek ni) I am starting my clinical round now. Well, not exactly a round actually, it is rather a clinical lectures. FYI, a normal clinical year suppose to be like; going to the hospital early in the morning, attending some sort of very short lectures, go around the wards taking patient history that going home when our task finished. Well, I heard that’s how it goes in other countries’ clinical round.

But here in Egypt, due to our insufficiency in talking Egyptian Arabic, we were put inside a small class room. Then, the patient was brought to us by the professors. Any question, we will ask to the professors in English, then the profs will ask the patient using local language, and vice versa.

Everyday is a long day for me. Because our class started as early as 8.30 am and ends everyday at 4 pm sharp. Or more. The professors are very good at delaying us. It is tiresome, but nevertheless I think it is still good because it made me feel confident eventhough the same cases were presented to us everyday. At least I don’t have the hardship to read again what was taught to us, because the profs (and the cases) were repeated quite a lot.

The 200 students are divided into two large group, Internal Medicine group and Surgery group. And each of the group are further divided into 5 groups. Me, in Surgery, group 2.

So, each the smaller group are stationed in their specific department. As for me, I got the Gastrointestinal Tract (GIT) Department. It is a nice department, at least my classroom is air-conditioned, very comfortable to sleep. But, the cases is always repeated. Which is, Hernia cases. Henias is very common. Because of what, well, that’s what I will tell you about it after this.

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There are a lot of type of Hernias, or uluran in Malay. Most of the abdominal hernia are caused by weakness of the front anterior muscle. Did you know that even though you stomach have a smooth skin (or flabby, like some person), the are actually some sort of opening on the skin underlying. Mostly to men, for their spermatic cord. Mostly the hernia are cause by protrusion of abdominal content through this opening. Actually, Allah has created the human as perfect as it is. But I believe that it is our activities which make it wrong.

For hernia, most of the cases are caused by frequent lifting of heavy objects. As you know, Egypt has quite a number of poor people. They said the rich people are damn rich, while the poor people are damn poor. It’s like the gap are too wide. Those poor people, in order to eat the breakfast or lunch, need to work. And what work are better for them other than heavy work like lifting heavy object.

So, these people are susceptible to got hernia. Which we always discussing about it everyday. Because there is always patients that have it everyday.

Hernia can be treated surgically. However, it makes me think. Eventhough a hernial patient has successfully treated (which not 100%, if you count the complicated case, the post operative complications etc), doesn’t it predisposed to recurrence? Because after their recovery, these people will be still doing their previous work, lifting heavy object.

So, some way must be done to reduce the incidence of Hernia in community. Like promoting the use of machine to lift object. Damn, I sounded like a Community Medicine lecturer. LOL

That’s the point of my post actually.