So many new things have happened again in such little time, it’s as if normal classes are completely useless compared to what you learn in such a short period of time when actually being in the setting. One of the things which was on the program last week was echocardiography, the ultrasound of the heart [...]
So many new things have happened again in such little time, it’s as if normal classes are completely useless compared to what you learn in such a short period of time when actually being in the setting.
One of the things which was on the program last week was echocardiography, the ultrasound of the heart for those not familiar with the term. Before I began this internship I knew how to recognize the 4 chamber view, but that’s pretty much where it ended. Just within a couple of days of being explained on what you’re actually looking at, how it works and just checking around myself I’ve learned so much more about it.
The best thing about it all is that I now can actually say I can understand it to some extent when looking at it. Of course it’s far from perfect, but heck cardiology is a speciality which takes many years to achieve so it’d be crazy to even think that.
Asides from understanding the basics of echocardiography we’ve also gotten some explanation on the basics of electrocardiography (EKG) again. Now this is something which we had briefly in the first year of our studies, but by now of course most of that information has sunk away so the refresh was more than welcome.
Most of all it’s interesting to see how the different departments work together on various cases, bring different specialists together trying to solve the pieces of a puzzle. It clearly is something which shows the amount of teamwork and effort which can go behind a single patient, something which definitely isn’t coming back in our classes.
Meanwhile the assignment for the tetralogy of Fallot is going quite good as well, we’ve been gathering quite some information already and last Friday we attended a symposium on the subject which was very informative and also confirmed that we were on the right track.
There’s just about 2 and a half weeks left unfortunately till it’ll be over again, it’s a shame it is going by so fast since it’s a lot more educational and interesting than classes day in, day out.
If the upcoming weeks will be like the previous ones though I’m sure that if I get the chance later on in my studies to come back to cardiology in the children’s hospital I’ll be taking that opportunity with both hands.
