My elective as a medical student in South Africa

Almost 2 weeks since my last post. A lot has happened. I continued working most days and i did plenty of procedures. Suturing and scrubbing as usual. Most „interesting“ scrubbing patient: IV drug user, 0,0 veins so i inserted a 16 Gauge I.V. Into his external jugular vein…..Back home I would’ve gotten killed for that. Here my interns were impressed and maybe a bit proud. The patient had 3rd to 4th degree burns at both hands and i think they will need amputation. Still i was supposed to scrub him. After i gave him ketamine (fractioned, in total at the end 100 mg) he went completely insane. He climbed on the stretcher and jumped onto us. It took 5 people including security to fixate him….That escalated quickly. But another new experience. After talking to all the experienced doctors i was also assured that my dosing was fine and that the patients state was probably responsible for that adverse reaction. Also i did my first RSI with intubation in Resus – i was allowed to do everything how i would do it as the responsible doctor and another more experienced doctor was on standby next to me. I did induction with 150 mg of ketamine, 10 mg of midazolam and 100 mg of rocuronium. It worked 10/10, tube was in after seconds. That made me very proud. Thanks again to the superb teaching i got during my months in anaesthesiology!!!

Next to that i did more ICDs, they are getting better and better. My confidence is there, i know how to do it and i am getting faster!! Another potentially life saving procedure i learned.

In my free time i have found the best people ever. I am surrounded by so many nationalities and i enjoy my time here a lot. Evening resteraunt visits, home cooking, having a beer at the evening. Going on safari which was really an impressing experience. I love it here. And there i already have the perfect introduction for the most important part of that post: I am extending my time here. In the last days i realized that I don’t even have 3 weeks left here anymore and that time flies so fast. This made me very sad. So i contacted my home university and asked them for permission for a longer stay – which would be 16 weeks in total. They gave me the permission!!. Still have to talk to the university here, but i got a letter of recommendation by one of the responsible consultants here. And everybody told me when i got that the university is not even allowed to say no. Because 16 weeks is too long for my visa i made up a plan for taking days off (i am allowed to by my home university) and my total time here will be 12 weeks. Which will also mark the end of my final year as a medical student. Insane to think about that. If it really turns out that way i will have my final shift as a medical student at a Saturday night – i will leave the hospital sunday morning and i am basically done with med school. Only one exam left. I learned so so much in all my rotations. My plans are not 100% fixed yet, still need to talk about more stuff with my home university, figure stuff out here. But i am very optimistic that my plan will work out! And I am so happy about that – dreams coming true, i love my life here and i am learning simultaneously sooo much here. That is what i would call a jackpot.