So, I gave my assessment yesterday. It was pretty much expected that it was coming up, as everyone up for assessment were being called based on their shift, and since I was morning at that point of time, it was pretty much inevitable.
The Krishnan luck has proven to have followed me to work as well considering I had pretty much the hardest panel amongst the assessors. No point crying over spilled milk, so lets not harp on that.
First part of assessment is when they look at your various documentations. The first is a green card where several specialists evaluate your ward progress on a bi-weekly basis. Then there’s a 1 month, and 2 month assessment of your progress by specialists. They’ll also want to see a piece of paper that indicates you don’t have any discharge summaries pending, authenticated by the ward sister. Then there’s the log book, a book you fill up with all the procedures that you have done/observed/assisted. Finally, they may want to see your tagging period tagging log.
After they see your documentation and comment on how sad and terribly lacking it is, they proceed to asking you on how to perform any of the myriads of procedures a houseman may observe/do in the ward. So you’ll have to explain the procedure from top to bottom. Ironically, one of my assessors is a neurologist, and surely enough, the procedure he wanted me to explain was Lumbar Puncture.
I’ve come to notice that whilst my previous explanation was partially correct, there were a bit of holes here and there. Considering the nature of his field of interest, we went into many of the intricate specifics. Discussing the spinal needle type, all the way to the bore size. At one point it even got into really specific details like how the needle should be held, to assorted things like what may cause Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension. Other expected questions were the normal opening pressure, the indications and contraindications. I was also asked two additional indications for LP, which I answered for Spinal Anaesthesia and Delivering drugs, particularly chemotherapy, intrathecally.
Next question was a situational based question where I’ve got a patient who came in with fever, vomiting and lethargy. Gave my differentials, and I decided to go with dengue fever. The full diagnosis turned out to be DSS Decompensated Shock, In Febrile Phase D4, With Warning Signs.
They asked the management at this point, and gave a VBG findings for interpretation. Answered the treatment for Dengue as much as I could, and when the clock struck 5, they said, Okay, we think we’ve heard enough, you can go now. Their faces didn’t show any emotions, I don’t know how well I did. As Parting words, they said, “Karthik, you’re a lalang, you need to be more confident with your answers.” At this point I don’t know how I’ve done as they said nothing.
I walked out confused, curious and depressed (which was cured by beers later). I was supposed to call and find out how I did, but I was in denial and wanted to protect my self, so I did what any self-respecting Indian would do; I denied ever having sat for assessment and made plans for beers later that day.
Now I’ve realized not knowing sucks, every minute not knowing how or what has happened. I asked one of the specialists today on how I fared, she just smiled and said nothing. Y U NO TELL!
No matter, perhaps I may just find an ounce of bravery to try calling and enquiring tomorrow.
P.S. Perhaps my next post will be me bitchin’ about how I’ve been extended.
Cheers.
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