I stayed 2 nights in a hostal with holger before I moved into the sisters quarter of the hospital where men and female are strictly separated. The shared room is simple but really ok, even with an own bathroom and a small couch. However no air condition, and yes, Singapore is very hot and humid. I am dying every night while trying to get some sleep.
On Monday my clinical elective in the general surgery department officially started. But I had to report there first on Tuesday, so it was nice to have another day off. Tuesday we had a powerpoint introduction with all the rules of the hospital and code of conduct and we were introduced to our department and supervisors. Singapore is a rather strict country and the hospitals and sister quarters have a lot of rules for medical students – you have to dress very formal, men with tie, no shirts, short skirts and slippers allowed. You have to wear your nametag all the time. Today we had a 2 hour lecture about infection control and mask fitting. It was quite boring but it seemed they take it very serious. Actually the same precautions we take in Germany, when to wash your hand, how to handle mrsa patients and so on. So we thought they were really strict with sterility as well, but just to find out in the OT (operation theatre = OP) that they are a bit slack there. At least it was the impression of our first day in the OT. But it was surpisrising that all new students including the singaporians had to take part in that lecture or otherwise you are not allowed to work in the hospital.
SGH is huge and kind of a 9-story labyrinth with many hallways and even more people. Nurses wear all different colors depending of the department, doctors are dressed very formal but wearing the white coat only on the wards. I am in the general surgery department, which is devided into 6 teams. I am 2 weeks team 3: head and neck surgery and the other 2 weeks team 6: transplant surgery. They only do liver transplant here, however there is only 1 every month. So not really a lot. Each team has its own specialty but they are all doing the general surgery as well. Each team has one operation day of the week – team 1 on Mondays, team 2 on Tuesdays and so on. As well as the on call duty for each team one day a week, which is from 8 to 8. if we want we can take part in that and stay overnight, but I am not sure if I want to ;)
The OT was very modern – the dressing room was big and with pink lockers, the upcoming operations were shown on large flat screens and the instruments such as a mobile ct? in the hallway were very new. But with entering the operation room itself it felt like 20 years ago… they still use rather numerous greens sheets to cover the patient instead of the self-sticking ones, I felt they were really incautiously with allowing also non-sterile people too close to the table. And the patient is brought right into the operation room fully awake. Then lots of people are moving around preparing the operation while his waiting to get anesthetized. I believe it is kind of traumatizing for the patient to see the actual OT rather then a quiet neat room with only the 2 anesthetists and peacefully sleeping away. So far it was no hands on for us elective students. When going out, you usually throw all worn clothes and shoes into a basket to get washed and sanitized. Surprisingly after a whole lecture of infection control you put the used shoes right back to where you took them without any cleaning.
