By Yinyi Hetty Fan, MED 2015 Participant
Today, I went to USCF for my shadowing. It was my first time to shadow with a doctor. Every buddy in my group had been distributed to a doctor, I was the last to be called. When I was distributed to Dr. Hsu, she took me to ICU, then my shadowing began!
I was so excited because I never expected that I would have chance to get into ICU. ICU is no doubt a challenging place. No one knows what will happen the next. Dr. Hsu presented cases to us, though I studied a lot of medical courses in my school I found that I could not understand many medical terms, since I studied most terms in Chinese. However, Dr. Hsu’s intern helped me a lot. He explained every word I felt confusing. A tough start but I liked it :-D. American internal medicine is different from China, they seem to take charge of every kind of disease, while Chinese internal medicine will be divided into many specific departments. Maybe most people in ICU usually suffer from complicated problems, infection can be a concerned one. First case I shadowed today is an old man suffered from heart failure and damage in kidney, though his legs seemed to get rid of edema but it may only depend on CRRT. Then Dr. Hsu’s group was discussing about his vital signs, it seemed he got better today.
Life can be strong, we can even call it miracle. The second case is an old woman who suffered from stroke, pulmonary embolism and many other severe problems. And at the same time, her cancer seemed to get worse. I thought she must be very sick but when I stepped into her room. She was smiling to us and looking forward her daughter coming. Her vital signs seemed great and I was impressed by her smiling face.
However, life can be fragile. One of the interns presented a case of an old man.This old man likes him a lot, he chatted with the intern for a long time yesterday and felt no pain at all. But this morning he was really tired, and he even could not speak. His nurse told us he was a nice guy and we hoped he can get better.There were so many cases I wanted to share with you. Doctors not only meet all kinds of complicated diseases but also different people, even someone who is homeless. Dr. Hsu took me to a 15 min meeting with social workers, pharmacists and other hospital staff, they discussed about the post care of patients who can be discharged. From their mental to medical insurance. I was surprised by the careful treatment to every patient. Then I realized it was closer to noon, Dr. Hsu still had a lot of work to do.
It was time to say goodbye to UCSF, I believed my experience in UCSF can be one of the most precious time in my life.
