Scrubs Comes to Life in the NHS

Did you know Scrubs has been reported to be the most accurate medical drama? Although I have had multiple amusing stories thus far in my physiotherapy training, I have not had any true 'Scrubs moments' that make me wonder whether this is actually happening.

Then I had a placement in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

As part of this placement, I worked in a variety of settings including medical inpatients. This was possibly my favourite setting as many patients from A&E are then admitted to this ward, meaning you are presented with a wide variety of cases. About two weeks into the placement, I visited the ward for the third time and was presented with a patient who needed a walking aid assessment. This is typically an easy job that simply involves the patient standing, trialling a piece of equipment and going for a quick stroll. Knowing my luck, I'm typically prepared for something to surprise me, but this day exceeded my expectations.

I drew back the blue, pleated curtains and saw the patient asleep on his left side. On waking he spluttered and mumbled a couple of incomprehensible words to which I simply nodded and smiled: a fail safe technique.
    'Good afternoon Mr Smith' (Please note all names have been changed for confidentiality purposes).
He turned his head, squinted in my direction and replied 'Merhhd aftan...' I optimstically decided that to mean 'Good afternoon kind lady, how may I help you?'
   'How are you doing today Mr Smith?'
   'Terrible!' yelled a patient from the other side of the bay. Somewhat surprised I turned around, calmly apologised and explained that I was actually talking to Mr Smith. He nodded and went about his business.
   'How are you feeling Mr Smith?'
   'Horrible! I told you that already!' yelled the other patient. I once again turned, and asked him his name. James seemed to understand my gently rephrased explanation of 'I'm trying to talk to this guy, hush', so I returned to Mr Smith.
   'How did you sleep?' Mr Smith, finally, made a noise but so faint that I couldn't hear him over the response of the other patient across the bay. 'Sorry Mr Smith, I can't hear you. How did you sleep?'
   'I didn't!' James bellowed.
Before I had a chance to calm the situation, a third patient lost his temper. 'For God's sake man she's clearly not talking to you will you just be quiet and let her get on with it!'
   'Well how was I meant to know?' James snared back.
   'Because she is using his name not yours you buffoon!'
I imagine that on reflection the third patient may have regretted using the word buffoon. The argument exploded and talking to Mr Smith became near impossible.
   'What kind of walking aid do you use at home?' I loudly asked, leaning in towards Mr Smith to optimise my chances of hearing his response.
   'A frame? You use a zimmer frame?' I asked him, still in close proximity. He nodded. 'I'll just go and get a frame and then we can go for a walk, would you like to do that?' He once again nodded, clearly realising that his voice would be lost in the wailings of the other two patients.

As I left the bay, slightly shell shocked from the incident I questioned how on earth I had found myself talking to a hard of hearing, quiet patient in a now loud, bickering environment. This quickly died into insignificance as turned the corner to find the ward underwater. Blinking, I pondered what on earth was happening. The laminated floors were covered in an inch of water; the puddle slowly growing towards the nurses station. I edged around it, and saw a doctor crouched in the side room corridor grasping a dust pan to scoop the surrounding water into a bucket. 'Mr Jones please leave the bathroom tap turned off!' A nurse appeared, short of breath and red in the cheeks, but composed. 'I've found the cleaning staff, they will be here shortly with a mop.' She looked to the left of the doctor, to see him clutching his dust pan, and with a bemused look slowly turned and edged away.

From then on, it all seemed calm. Bizarrely James and the third patient had argued their way into a friendship and Mr Jones didn't turn the tap on again. He in fact became cautious to use it at all in case he forgot to turn it off again. Not quite the hygenic approach I think the doctor was hoping for but it did cease the flooding. Mr Smith was fine, and walked independently around the flooded ward. I turned my head, looked up in an inquisitive manner and delved into a JD thought process of '...what would an underwater hospital be like?'

Foxes - Youth

You Can't Speak, But You Can Sing?

So my third placement was in Acute Stroke. This is a remarkable field of physiotherapy that, quite frankly, scared the crap out of me. Communication has always been one of my downfalls, especially when being watched. I'm not easily stressed, but even a task as simple as chopping vegetables becomes tricky when someone's peering over my shoulder. So, I expected to be panicked when being watched in a situation as serious as post-stroke. 

I was just a little tense.

However the patients, cases and whole response unit is incredible. It was challenging, and as cheesy as it sounds incredibly rewarding. The attitudes people had after a stroke I found to be incredible. Most people were fairly accepting of their condition, and either refused treatment to remain in bed or were driven to get back to their life before. It still astounds me how the majority of patients are lovely, when out and about people that are rude and selfish are more common. Perhaps that is simply because I've so far dealt with the very young or very old, where they haven't had time to reach that stage or have grown out of it.

The links between the location of a stroke (in their brain that is... although the local services can make a difference) and the clinical presentation is astounding, and the ability to predict how a patient will present based on their CT scan makes for an interesting role when planning suitable treatment. Obviously different areas of the brain control different parts of the body, whether personality, memory, perception of objects on one side of your body, the ability to talk or the ability to improve your aim on a dart board. Each side of your brain controls the opposite side of your body, so if you have a stroke in your right motor cortex, say towards the front of your brain, you'll lose movement in your left arm. Now this is where it gets really smart: if you're dominant on your right side (ie you are right handed) you are dominant on the left side of your brain, so your speech originates from the left side. Therefore if you're a lefty, your speech comes from the right side of your brain, and to top that all off? Often patients that lose the ability to speak, due to a lack of blood to the area, can still sing. The theory is it taps in to another area of the brain, and so even though they've struggled to say a single word they can join in happily to 'London's Burning'.

I cycled to and from this placement every morning. It was a lovely cycle, mostly downhill on the way there and through a mental hospital, which had a calm, relaxing atmosphere with plenty of greenery. The station was right by Sainsbury's so every evening I could pick up dinner on my way home before hopping on my bike. However one evening I came home late, and my bike was not there. You might be thinking, 'ah but this is London, you knew it was going to happen some time' but actually, that bike was so poxy no one would want it. The frame is too small, the bolt on the saddle jammed to leave it a suitable height for dwarves, the gears gargle frequently and none of the brakes work. It doesn't even look nice. In my panic I started doubting myself. Maybe I didn't leave it there, that must've been yesterday. So I started walking around all the bike racks trying to find it, but the more I thought about it the more certain I was that I definitely left it outside Sainsbury's. Just as I was about to give up hope, I spotted it. My poxy little bike sat there, chained to a new rack with a new lock and someone else's bike. Time to ring the police. But hold on, this was not an emergency - 999 is not suitable. I don't even know where the local police station is. Time to ring the parents. 

Finally, I got a hold of the police. They transferred me from person to person and each time they had the same shocked silence to 'Hi, I had my bike stolen but I've found it chained up to another bike approximately 30m away. Can someone help me to cut it free please?' The conclusion they eventually came to was 'Unfortunately, it is a busy night and there is no one in the area who can help you. We may be able to get someone to you in about 6 hours, but seeing as it will be 4am we do not recommend you stay by your bike.' I'm starting to understand how so few people get their stolen bikes back, seeing as I'd done the tricky bit and found it!

So I decided if the police weren't going to help me, I was going to have to get it back myself. And, with thanks to a local chicken shop, I did. Unfortunately I went to 5 or so shops beforehand and had to explain the whole story to each one. I left a note for the filthy little thieves:

'PAHAHA! Selfish bastards. Hope the other bike is still there. I would have locked it but YOU STOLE MY LOCK. Farewell.'

This isn't a song, however it is a fantastic advert. I thoroughly enjoyed the first one, but this is even more spectacular.

Thinkbox - Harvey & Rabbit

The Christina Chronicles

Meet another one of my housemates, Christina.
For anyone who watches the Big Bang Theory, there is likeness to Sheldon in her - although not as extreme. She's an interesting character, and although sometimes can be a complete nightmare to live with it's often these characteristics that make her personality great.

The first year I lived with her, I created the 'Mean List', as the majority of her mischief was somehow deflected onto me. Take a look at the mean things Christina has done to (a rather innocent) Hayley:

• Poured hot chocolate down her back
• Threw a pan of popcorn scraps at her, resulting in mass attack from the flat
• Set the fire alarm off at 3am with an impressive amount of cigarette smoke
• Threw water at her, resulting in it looking like she had been drooling/peed herself
• Smashed a freshly cooked fairy cake in her face (half eaten and all)
• Smeared houmous on her face, then wiped some of it off with pitta bread
• Woke her (& Linus & Laura) up on the morning(s) they had a lie in
• Ran into her room at a ridiculous time of the morning and shoved her tits in her face whilst yelling 'WE FOUND STRIPPERS!'
• Running up to her room and scaring Hayley just to provoke the 'WHHHYYY?!' reaction
• The many attacks of her BCG including the demon elbow
• Told Hayley: 'See if looks evil, that's why it's like you.'
• Told Hayley: 'Your music is so spasticated it makes me want to cry'

Our kind of humour

The list became long enough that there was a need for part II:

• Hit Hayley in a lecture to wake her up. Hayley was not asleep
• Hit Hayley because she was being attacked by Yao
• Hit Hayley's boob with a tendon hammer to test whether or not it had a reflex
• Told Hayley 'You look ill.! No 'Hello', nothing. Hayley was not ill & had actually been feeling rather cheery
• Told Hayley 'You look like a mosquito bite'
• Percussed Hayley's head and then announced 'It's empty'

At this point she interjected with 'gingerls have hairy pussy and most are agly'. She's from Cyprus, so imagine that in a Greek accent for full effect.

• Exclaimed 'I would never kiss Hayley!' Christina then pulled a disgusted expression and continued with 'I would never kiss a ginger!'
• Informed Hayley 'You're pretty... for a ginger'

She interjected once more with 'It is the truth... patric likes but what the fuck...' Patrick is a mutual friend who simply said that he had no objections to hooking up with a ginge.

• Punched Hayley in the cunt. Ouch.
• Jumped on an ill Hayley and began dry humping & jiggling her tits in Hayley's face. This was after a game of strip poker.

From there, the list was becoming too long and so was ceased for year 2, but it doesn't mean that it stopped. Admittedly we trained her out of hitting by whacking her back every time, but her humorous stunts continued aplenty.

This year she took a running, drunken punch at my cunt. Joy.

One of my good mates, Martin, often crashes round mine and vice versa... so it's common for him to be in my bed in the morning. Christina often strolls into my room declaring 'Hiiiii Martin' and grabbing his crotch (don't ask about the latter, we've never really understood). One morning, she strolled in and saw a brown-haired chap and so said 'Hiiiiiii Martin!' but thankfully didn't grab his crotch as, funnily enough, it wasn't Martin but instead Joe. Try explaining that to the guy.

Her finest performance this year? The return to our house from Beer Bowling. A typical 15 minute walk took us a good 45. We walked all of about 5m before she removed her shoes because they hurt, but she was in no state to be shoeless so I gave her mine. She continued the journey, humping glass windows in an attempt to hump the manikins behind and hugging cars that she believed to be her beloved Tzatiki. At 2am, the floor was just a tad cold so for her to remove my shoes from her feet, 20m from our front door declaring 'These shoes are NONSENSE!' was a massive blow. Funnily enough, the next morning she remembered nothing.

This song will always remind me of her:

Don't Worry, Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin