A good day

Back to work after day-off yesterday. Took the team with the rooms near the nursing station this afternoon. Started with 7 patients, including 2 adults post-op. 1 child was discharged in the mid-afternoon and 1 adult in the evening. Then there was 1 new child admission for a minor surgery in the late-afternoon. Thus ended my shift with a total of 6 patients under my team's care, of which 1 is an adult post-op case. My morning colleague did the pharmacy billing forms already, so I just added on the stuff that I used. I went in earlier to draw up the medications to-do list before taking report.

2 SN (J and I), 2 experienced HCA (M on my team and K for SN J), and my preceptor in-charge. Fortunately, the post-op cases where rather stable, and so were the paediatric cases. SN J helped me by assisting a doctor for a dressing at the male private part. Later at the staff room, she shared with us how the ang-moh wasn't shy to openly show his penis even with his wife around. In addition, she was amazed at his huge penis. We had a good time laughing over it. Later I saw the penis when discharging the patient, it is only average size for ang-moh males. My preceptor helped me with the paperwork for both discharges. I discharged both cases, and did the complete set of case notes for the new surgery admission case. Ok, I missed out some fields in the consent form and my OT colleague called me to complete it :-P All medications were done on time, entered items for the ward billings and the pharmacy billing forms along the way, popped down to pharmacy twice to collect medications before they were due. I even had time to prepare milk for a child and clean and sterilize some milk bottles. Near the end of the shift, I completed my flow charts and taped my team's report.

Today is a good day. I had time for tea, collect dinner from the staff canteen, and dinner break. My preceptor and fellow colleagues were very encouraging. While waiting for the night shift report passing to be completed, we chat about possible themes for this year's Christmas decoration. Our ward had been a winner for the past 2 years, so the ward manager is hoping to win again this year.

p.s. Today the parents of a paediatric patient in a double room suddenly requested for a single room when the surgery case was admitted to the other bed of the double room. My colleagues told me that it is the trend with some parents. They are ok to be paying the lower rate of a shared room until another paediatric patient takes up the other bed(s).