I think it was a really good move to sleep in until 6pm the day before, It totally prepared me for the night shifts I was about to begin. I spent the whole of monday afternoon sleeping and crying over the blind girl in Masterchef before heading to the hospital. When I arrived I found a big crowd of my colleagues smiling at me. They had been waiting for me to come in because a patient had arrived who could only speak English and they wanted me to take a history from her and then present the case back to them. I felt useful once more. They were overly impressed with my summary of the patient and then we began deciding what the best option was next. The patient and I talked a lot about the differences between the Japanese and Western medical systems and it was interesting to hear the patient's point of view of the healthcare here. They were extremely grateful I was around as it made translating information a lot easier and I was able to keep they occupied.
After they managed to get home safe, one of the doctors asked me if I would like to present a case at the conference in the morning, in Japanese. I love going out of my comfort zone and so I just went for it. We found a different patient and we went through the information before collating an english version and then translating it into Japanese. I spent a lot of the night reading it over and over and making sure I had the correct pronunciations down. Everyone was again very helpful.
It turns out the free lunch thing transfers over to night shift too and I got a free dinner, yas. A lot of the evening was very quiet with periods of it being busy. After talking to two of the doctors they revealed they LOVE metal music and we were soon talking about all the bands we shared in common. KoRn came up eventually and I told one of the doctors how I saw them live in Scotland like 5 years ago. She also happened to be a smoker too and so we had little cig breaks together (we almost got attacked by the rats and she literally didn't bat an eyelid while I shat myself). Amazing. I love how no one cares here if you are a smoker and a healthcare worker. When other medical students see I smoke they look at me like I just spat in their face. If you ever told a doctor, most would condescendingly tell you how bad it was for you. Yeah, like I didn't know that one already. Each to their own.
As it got later I started to feel a little bit tired. This was like 5.30 am so completely justified. I went to the staffroom to rest my eyes briefly and when I awoke it was 7am and I had another before my presentation. SHITTTTTT, I suddenly got really nervous. I was going to be presenting a patient to like 12 doctors in a language as difficult as Japanese, why did I agree to this? I ran through it one more time with the night shift team and they said it was good. I got told to goto the conference as it would be starting soon. I walked in and not only was there 12 doctors there but 6 medical students i'd never met were there AND my tutor Dr Takeda was at the back. Heart was racing. I got up and got started, made a few little slip ups but once I was finished I was asked a few questions (in English thankfully) before Dr Takeda stood up and told me congratulations for a perfect presentation. Everyone clapped and I was so relieved I didn't end up telling them the complete wrong information.
I was on such a high that I invited my colleagues out for a beer after our shift and to my surprise they said yes! I didn't get away until 9am, 14 hours after I arrived. So crazy. We went to a Family Breakfast restaurant and you should have seen the waiter's face when we asked if they served beer. I thought he was going to phone the police. It definitely did not feel like 9.30 in the morning. In my defence it was like 1.30am back home ;)
We all headed home and I collapsed into a big tired heap to sleep for the day until I was in again for my next shift at 7pm :|
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