I guess Davaoeños really love durian.

Marq (my dreamboy) and I were in Davao City, Mindanao from May 28 to May 31. We flew via Cebu Pacific Air and his relatives at Nenita Farms graciously received us. We also got to enjoy Pearl Farm for a day for free! This picture was taken from Davao Medical Doctors Hospital. Visiting this hospital was the main purpose of our travel; Marq was contemplating on having his Anesthesiology residency here. The hospital was relatively new, expanding, Überclean and ISO-XXXXX certified. Coming from PGH, it was refreshing to see a decongested hospital. The only drawback was that it was, well, small. Each ward has a bed capacity of approximately 30.

We appreciate different things sometimes.

He liked eating durian. 'It's an aphrodisiac,' he says. Well, I thought it was eeky. But I finished a serving and tried to develop a taste for it. Maybe I'd eventually appreciate it if we stayed longer in Davao.

We both loved our Davao-extended-weekend-getaway. Maybe we'd be back there some other time...

Since i started medical school, I have always been haunted by Hepatitis. I had two, undelightful encounters with the disease and I hope that's the end of it.

When we got into 3d year of Intarmed, we were all oriented to have our vaccines taken. In medical school, we will be exposed to a lot of diseases which can be transmitted via various ways, i.e. aerosol (respiratory), orofaecal (yes, if we eat without handwashing after contact with our patients), and the most deadly of all, iv route. You can get infected via needle pricks or even through blood contact with your bare skin.

At first, I had no plans of getting the vaccines. My eldest brother who also underwent medical school, spent the money for his vaccine on a date. That has been my inspiration. He's perfectly fine now. Ü but with the constant prodding of my mother, I finally went to our health service clinic and had my first shot. I never had the 2nd and 3rd dose though. I thought it was too costly and I was too nonchalant to follow my vaccination schedule. Now it's almost a year since my first dose, and that means, i am not adequately - er, not protected AT ALL against it.

So here comes my first clinical rotation... Clerkship in Neurosciences. This is a rotation where the clerks get to feel how it is to be an intern since there are no interns to refer to. You're the only person in-charge of all the ward and er neuro patients. I had a patient with Dementia and probable Prion Disease who had tremors and severe spasticity of the upper extremities. I had to extract blood from her and the usual site for blood extractions is the antecubital vein. And so with much difficulty, I finally got her arm to extend, expose the vein, and successfully do my job! Yes, what an achievement! We use syringes by the way (not vacutainers) and I had to replace the cap (which SHOULD NOT BE DONE in a proper hospital setting) so I can remove the needle and transfer the blood into the vial. While replacing the cap... yep, I got pricked. It was not too deep and it didn't hit a vein or anything, it didn't spontaneously bleed. But with a patient whose working diagnosis is not yet definitively established, I felt really, really, awful for not getting my vaccines. Good thing, luck was on my side, the patient turned out negative for HIV/Hepatitis/VDRL. Whew!

My second encounter was not as deadly... But it was equally incapacitating. I just had my Medicine oral examination about 30 minutes ago. It's an exam where you get to choose between two cases and cram it for 15 minutes before entering the dragon's lair (1 consultant and 1 senior resident) to discuss your differentials, diagnostics, and therapeutics for the case. I prepared for this oral exam. I really did. I can confidently discuss acute MI, hepatic encephalopathy, DM emergencies, thyroid storm, typhoid, leptospirosis and dengue. But when I opened the two folders containing the cases... it was both on fever! Fever! Infectious! My golly! And during the course of my examination, I got to the corect diagnosis of chronic hepatitis A infection with acute hepatitis B infection. Yep, a topic I didn't read a single page on. Dammit!

This is not really the best way to start my blog, but you can expect more of ramblings and rants and less of realizations in future entries. Hopefully, no more about hepatitis!