Tuesday, February 19, 2008 . 7:25 PM
What Goes Up...
I think I saved a life today.
Today was our second session of the early clinical exposure programme, at SGH. Pradip, Diana, Xin Rong and I got to the medical student's centre early and so we decided to walk around a bit. Little did we know that we could have saved someone's life in the near future.
As we were walking down the corridor toward the educational resource centre, Pradip suddenly spotted through the window, a woman two floors below just collapse with no warning. The four of us were uncertain at first... Perhaps a little afraid to get involved? After all, it was a hospital... But we quickly decided to get down to the floor to see what was happening.
As soon as we exited the lift we saw the woman lying face down on the floor, in a somewhat recovery position. There was definitely something wrong here, yet none of us were sure of what to do. I knelt by the woman, shaking her, looking for a sign of consciousness. The moment she didn't respond, Pradip immediately searched for a nurse. After a while, however, I managed to get some response... Semiconsciously, she told me she had a very sharp pain in her chest. I realised then I couldn't do anything for her... Couldn't help her ease her pain, couldn't help her up for fear of aggravating the situation... I could only kneel by her and reassure her that help was arriving. I don't know what the others felt at that time, but I was a medical student... Surely I should be able to do SOMETHING...
Well help soon arrived and we discovered that she was a just-discharged patient who probably suffered a relapse of her condition... A heart condition I guess... I hope she's all right now. I'm happy that we managed to help her and possibly save her life, but I can't help but feel disappointed... That I feel... That I know that I should have been able to do more.
Oh well. I hate feeling helpless. But that's all I've been feeling recently...
As he sat there listening, he soon came to realize that she was WAY out of his league... And that she doesn't have a clue. He understood then that there was not a place for him like that that he had set aside for her.
"You'll Never Walk Alone"
Archangel
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