bedside manner.

yesterday was the first day of my elective.
i won't go into too much detail about it here. let's just say that there was plenty of estrogen around - from the nursing staff, doctors and of course to the patients. then again, that probably shouldn't have suprised me considering it's called the *** Centre for Birth Control!

was exhausting, but had a great time.
did you know that abortions in canada are completely LEGAL at any point in the pregnancy? that surprised me. i knew they were legal but not that there's no real set cut-off.
having said that, the large majority of clinics won't perform a termination after about 14 weeks. i'm told that after roughly 14 weeks, the fetus becomes too big to be discarded in the biomedical wastes bin and requires it's own casket and burial which is - to quote - "a pain in the ass".

i was also surprised by the types of people coming in for an abortion. i was naive to think that it'd be all 14 or 15 year old girls. actually they were probably of the minority. the youngest i saw was about 17 i think. there were a lot of middle-aged women coming in that just didn't want another baby. simple as that.
funny how there are thousands if not millions of women out there that spend heaps of $$$ on ART (assisted reproductive technology) and yet here are these women that are just looking to get rid of their unwanted baby. isn't life so unfair and cruel?

on a perkier note: i had the opportunity to (among other things) take a patient history. i was a little nervous but the first one went quite well. i had a patient who was really easy to talk to. she was the perfect lady to "pop my cherry".
;)
she actually even commented on my bedside manner! well, at least UQ seems to be teaching something right!