My Christmas break countdown ’till school opens in 2009 has started ticking. It’s the 22nd - just 3 days before the much-awaited celebration of Kuya Jess’ birth. I am both looking forward to the 25th and at the same time very anxious because this is the last Christmas break that I will be having until God knows when. As I mentioned in my previous post, next year, I will be spending my Christmas - or perhaps - New Year - caring for the sick and dying as a medical clerk. As preparation for our impending doom journey to the real hospital world, we will have a one-on-one session with a preceptor who will observe us while we do our history and PE on a patient starting next year. Although this isn’t exactly my first time to do this, what bothers me a lot is that we will be totally on our own this time unlike during our SGD patient encounter sessions wherein our preceptors supervise and correct us while we do our thing. What makes things a lot worse is perhaps the fact that we are clueless until the day of our one-on-one session on what kind of patients we will be having. In the past at least, we have an idea on what type of cases we will be encountering for the day. Say, Mondays are Pedia SGD days so we expect to see a kid entering the room, but for the one-on-one sessions, the patient who will walk in can either be an adult or a sick kid or even perhaps a pregnant woman. To make the very long explanation shorter, we’re supposed to know our maneuvers by heart - whether it be for a pregnant woman, for a Neuro patient who just had a stroke or for a week-old neonate being brought for a well-baby checkup. We’re supposed to do this only once and we’re divided into batches who will do the one-on-one preceptorship every Tuesday starting January. Sadly, I’m one of the very lucky students from the first batch. I’m already contemplating on ordering my epitaph since I’ll be dead for sure on January 6. So my dear friends, please pray for my impending death nerve-wracking one-on-one with Preceptor #6. More than anyone else, it is I who need your prayers badly on that day.

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I ain’t an equestrienne but perhaps you need some horse supplies.