Thursday 30 April 2009

Sneak Preview

Sooooo.. 2 1/2 weeks being an Medical Assistant and I haven't elaborated what I really do.

I'm working in the Internal Medicine department, clerking patients and doing all the necessary work. I pair up with my colleagues, every morning at 930 we do rounds with the Specialists (in Internal Medicine) and at some days, with the Head Of Department.

Internal Medicine (Turkish=Dahiliye) is the branch of medicine that deals with investigation, diagnosis and non-surgical treatment of disease(s) affecting the internal organs of the human body. Patients in our department are usually chronic cases, if not, rather severe illnesses. It's mostly a 50/50 outcome. Some get better, others deteriorate because their conditions are beyond help. Or the right drugs aren't helping.

I think in Internal Medicine, one has to be quite a Sherlock.

Every morning at 930.. visit rounds with Specialist Dr.Hüseyin Çat

Dr.Hatice presenting her 87-year-old patient

Hehehehee Dr.Ahmet caught yawning

Dr.Kenan getting arranging his file and getting his facts right

Convenient way to look at an X-ray, ehhh? :)

It's really good that our group consists of different subspecialists. If it's a heart patient, other than the Specialists, we could always refer to Dr.Ilker or Dr.Ali for their opinion. Blood results show that it's an infection, Dr.Ahmet could point out a worm or two. A word or two I mean :P

One more thing about specialisation in Turkey, let me shed some light on how it's done. After a medical student graduates, he/she will have to sit for the goverment exam called TUS. If one passes, he/she can work enter the specialisation field as desired. If one fails, he/she will have to carry a 2-3 year national service meaning be sent away to a rural area for practice. After that only eligible for specialisation.

They don't have Housemanship or whatever you wanna call it. Theirs is like Russia's version of Ordinatura. What they told me was, for example, Dr.Bashak has chosen to be an Internist which takes 5 years to complete. She would work under rotation (after every 3 months) only at departments that is connected to her field. Internal Medicine, Nephrology, Gastroenterology, ICU etc but OBGYN, Paediatrics, Surgery and such are omitted. I think it's kinda cool, and easy.

Hahahahaaha here's the juicy part. Monthly salary range from 3000TL/RM6710 (more or less) for starters and Specialists like Dr.Hüseyin Çat gets 8500TL/RM19000 (minimum). The numbers increases of course, based on seniority and higher qualifications. I can't imagine how much a Prof. Doctor who works in government AND private clinics make. Let's just say it's a shitload of income. So yeahhh. You can say it's real good money ;)

Funny thing is, the government is trying to persuade doctors to work in the villages at the other end of Turkey. Those really kampung places and they pay more than they do Istanbul. Catch is, these places are politically unstable. Tolga told me it's like a different world together and there's high risk of getting killed.

Wokay. I'm crossing that option out LOL

2 comments:

Bunny said...

Though i don't have any idea how it's like to practice yet, but it certainly does seem like a lot of Sherlock work needed to get the cases solved. heh.

Gorgeous Ol' Eve Loves Vanilla. You? said...

From what I've been told, my friends in Malaysia are definitely doing much harder work than I am :)