SRH visit brings fond memories for past student
Catching up with past students is one of joys of working in the School of Rural Health, especially when they take the time to drop into one of the campuses. That was the case with Raffy Halim, who recently popped into the East Gippsland Regional Clinical School at Sale where he was a student eight years ago. He tells here what he has been up to since his student days.
It seems in many ways so long ago, yet in other ways only like yesterday. It was 2005 and I was starting as a new clinical medical student at Sale Hospital.
It was my first “proper” clinical experience and after a few encounters in the city, I was pleasantly surprised at both how welcoming both the faculty and the patients were to being examined and questioned. I’m sure my patients now blame Sale for me being fairly relaxed around them and occasionally even dropping a bad pun!
I visited the hospital about a month ago and the friendly faces were still around and updating me on all the …erm… updates.
I hope the new students appreciate the huge new area that they have near the library! Back in my day (am I allowed to say that?) we were upstairs and the library was our hangout. So anyway, here’s my story since Sale, eight years ago.
Med School finished almost in the blink of an eye. Fourth year was fast and furious: covering GP/Psych/Paeds & O+G is quite a task and there seemed to be never enough time and always too much to do, especially as someone with a part-time job!
But then came final year, the reward for essentially completing Uni. I spent the first month or so on an elective in Nepal, assisting in theatre in Kathmandu, then later exploring the National Parks and Annapurna Ranges. After a brief rotation back in Australia, I was off to Malaysia for another rotation, where I finally found my specialty: Anaesthetics.
My holidays were also spent overseas in New York and I arrived exactly two and a half hours before my graduation ceremony. Final year was fun (and expensive!)
Internship saw me starting at Eastern Health, though my first rotation was not too far away from Sale, in Bairnsdale.
I recommend that others interns do not copy me; my first patient died within 10 minutes of me starting as a doctor! I actually had just picked up the patient in ED when he arrested. After that baptism of fire, things improved markedly. How could they get any worse?
As a resident, I did a critical care year and again did more Anaesthetics, now determined to pursue it as a career. This led me to Monash Health as an Anaesthetic SRMO and then a Registrar.
Now, I’m in second year, having just finished my Primary Exams and once again discovering that life does, indeed, exist outside the library and finally seeing old friends and familiar faces (like those in Sale).
Other than work, I’ve also travelled somewhat – Japan and Iceland are the standout countries – helped start a medical journal, JMTM where I’m the News and Media Editor and recently started a small online store.
But wherever I go, the bad puns follow…
– By Raffy Halim, Year 3 Sale 2005