Closing time….

So, we are almost at the end of the road, about to take the first step up the ladder of success perhaps?

This last week, we had a peer learning session where followed the other 2 students in our hospital to their surgical ward and had a taste of what they did. They too followed us in our general med ward and saw what we did with our COPD patients.

Subjectively we ask similar questions, objectively look for the same signs, rx wise, aim to get them up and walking. But walking a surgical patient is all about organisation. One needs to know where all the wires, drips, IDC, tubings are and how to handle them such that u still are able to place a hand on the patients back.

In terms of COPD patients, doing a detailed subjective is imperative. Not only do we ask the usual SOB, cough, sputum, chest pain, ex tolerance; we also need to determine patients’ ambulatory status, how much they can tolerate amb on a gd day, how they are on a bad day, if they have been prescribed ambulatory oxygen, or O2 at rest. Have they been to pulmonary rehab classes? (long term planning, d/c) If they have recurrent admissions (x6 in 6/12; very common in our ward), what led them in this time round, how were they coping at the time of the last discharge?

When we first started, I was missing out all the nitty gritty stuff, but as I got more familiar with it and understood why we had to ask these questions, it got smoother.

All the best for PCR !!