Well to those of you who don’t know, Medicine takes 6 years to study in KSA followed by a 7th year called Internship Year which is a grey cross-over year I guess between being a student and an actual doctor. You’re still called Doctor during internship and you get the famous Dr. before your name but you’re always supervised with many restrictions when it comes to patients’ management since we are not considered “real” doctors yet!

Anyhow, I arrived to the hospital just a little before 8:00 a.m. with my better half. We had a meeting with the Obstetrics & Gynecology interns’ supervisor since I’ll be starting OB GYN at King Abdulaziz University Hospital. I was assigned to the Labor and Delivery Room for the first two weeks. We also got our on-call schedule. I got three Sundays and a Thursday for the month of August which is fine. We received our new ID’s and got the famous pager that everyone will use to hunt us whenever we think we have a moment of spare time!

Right after that, around 10 a.m. we were assigning the cases in the L&D room as it’s called here among us the team scheduled to cover L&D for the first two weeks. Who wants C-Section? Said the OB GYN Specialist and I volunteered to take it. Scrubbed in and got to assist for the first time in a C-Section. I had only observed a couple of them before.

Back in L&D I arrived to find a vaginal delivery waiting for me to clerk and work up. It was the first time I get to assist in a vaginal delivery! I did some paperwork then I stepped into another room to observe episiotomy repair which looked too difficult for me to attempt! Another vaginal delivery and paperwork and it’s 4:30 in the afternoon and everyone is getting ready to go home. I was walking outside the ward making some phone calls when the specialist that I assisted in the morning called out to me: “Bassem are you up for another C-Section?” I instantly replied yes!

I left the hospital just after 7:oo p.m. happy that I got to do my first sub-cuticular stitch on the lady and that I was more involved in the procedure this time around.

I got back home, slept and woke up to do some paper work and send a couple of emails. Organizing my schedule and planning the Scientific Committee to-do-list for the GCC Conference I mentioned in a previous post.

I fell asleep. Went to the hospital. Got back this time just after 6 p.m.

My back is KILLING me and so are my feet. Internship is going to be one long and hard year! I can’t deny though that I think it’ll be a rewarding one at the same time inshallah!

Best of luck to all new interns out there!