Hey guys. I'm Siobhan, a 4th year medical resident specializing in rheumatology.
4th year. Ah, it does not feel real yet!
So today we're going through your top questions. Things like: What's the most shocking thing I've seen in the hospital?
And how did my husband Mark and I meet? So let's get started!
Alright, first question.
Hi Siobhan, I'd love to know what drew you to rheumatology over any other specialty?
Also, can we please get more videos of weird things that Mark finds in the hospital?
Oh my, that's fantastic. You know, it's... It's wild thinking back, because when I started medical school
I never thought that I would be doing a rheumatology fellowship. I don't even think I knew what rheumatology was back then.
And uh...
You know, I went into medical school thinking I wanted to be a surgeon,
because I was a violinist. I trained as a classical violinist. I used to performing under pressure, using my hands, fine motor skills.
It seemed like an obvious choice, so I didn't even think it was a decision.
What surprised me
is that
I was really excited by medical mysteries and rheumatology is all about these types of medical mysteries.
So trust me, in the next 2 years you're gonna hear all about it.
Oh and you mentioned Mark's scavenger hunt. I totally agree, that was so funny.
For those of you who haven't seen last week's video, my husband Mark and I were on call in the hospital together overnight
and he kept finding the weirdest, funniest things around the hospital.
So good.
Hey Siobhan, congrats on starting your fellowship in rheumatology.
Question: What's been the most shocking thing that you've seen or learned during your time in medicine?
Aha, haha.
That's a good one.
Uh, so there are a bunch of things, but there's one that I remember so vividly.
It was a night that I was on call for the ICU
and there was a patient who got transferred from an outside hospital, because he had a GI bleed.
And when he got here, he looked fantastic.
He was cracking jokes, his vitals were all stable.
And so, you know, I finished up my assessment. I was writing my note outside and all of a sudden I hear him call out.
So I quickly go back into the room
and I was just stunned.
I looked around and I'd never seen anything like this. He was vomiting up bright red blood,
it had splattered the wall,
all over the floor. The vitals machine was covered with it, even all of himself he was covered and he's just still vomiting blood.
So
after that
one second just being stunned I just kind of snapped into action and I called for help. Immediately a bunch of nurses came running in
and the first step is you always think about your ABCs. So A is airway
and he could not protect his airway. He was vomiting so much, some of the blood was already going down into his lungs.
So we had to put a tube down his throat and he was intubated. So now his lungs are secure.
Second issue was: How are we gonna stop this amount of bleeding?
So no matter how many bags of blood we keep pouring into him, he just kept bleeding huge amounts.
So we decided it was time for the blakemore.
Now a blakemore is a medical device. That's basically a tube with a big balloon at the bottom.
And you put the balloon down first
and it goes all the way down into the stomach and then you actually fill it up with water
so it gets bigger. And you pull on the tube, which causes tension
on the stomach and the esophagus and
it stops the bleeding. So just the same way that when you have a cut you apply pressure to stop the bleeding, same thing.
Now so now we've got this tube coming out of patient's mouth. We're pulling on it and you've got to attach it to something.
So we take a football helmet.
Yes, a football helmet! Put it on this patient who is unconscious
and we tie it and secure it to the face guard. Now you're probably wondering: Where did you even get
Aafootball helmet in the middle of the night in the hospital? And we didn't just make this up,
there's actually a football helmet in the ICU for this exact reason.
Now I actually don't know if this is something that's done commonly by all hospitals or if it's just here.
So if you know, just let me know in the comments below. Um, but it's extremely effective.
The bleeding stopped and in the end the patient did really well, so a good ending to an
extremely shocking and scary situation to walk into.
Hi Siobhan,
I hope you're having a wonderful day.
So my question to you is: What are some of the things you used to do or still do to reduce stress
and
prevent burnout?
Seems like a really appropriate question, right after that story. My views on this have actually changed a lot over time.
I used to think that if I made the perfect plan...
That I slept enough, I was eating well, exercising, seeing my friends and family and having my hobbies and I could do that all,
then my life would be perfect.
And I realized that is not possible and having those types of expectations would just make me feel like I was constantly failing.
So instead, now I just try to check in and I try to see: How am I feeling
and is something off? So on days where I'm like: ''Oh, I just don't quite feel myself,'' I kind of check in and say
okay... Well, you know what? I've only been sleeping 5-6 hours a night when I'm trying to study.
Okay, we need to get myself back into balance and sleep that 7-8 hours.
And by checking in and making little adjustments as you go along the week,
that's how you prevent yourself from getting so stressed and so burnt out down the road that you feel helpless at that point.
So...
Right now my strategy that I can share with you guys is I started committing to 10 minutes of meditation per day.
And I'm using an app called 10% happier.
This is, it's not a sponsored video or anything like that.
I'm sure there are lots of other good meditation apps out there. I just happen to really like this one and
I've been doing this and I've had great results. And it helps me check in and see how I'm doing.
So that's something I would definitely recommend.
Oh yeah, this is what I get a lot.
How did you meet your husband Mark? Okay, so as you might have guessed Mark and I met in medical school.
And at the time I had just moved into a new place with 3 roommates
and we decided to have a housewarming party.
So we actually created a house flag with a crest and everything. Super nerdy, but I loved it so much.
And inside the crest there were symbols that represented what we had done before we were in medical school.
So for me, that was the violin.
And at the housewarming party when Mark got there, he saw this crest and the violin and asked who played the violin.
And of course
then we got introduced and I learned that he also played the violin so we exchanged numbers and talked about playing duets together.
And I remember
just being so nervous, because I didn't know like was this a date? Were we just hanging out as friends?
Did we just want to play music? What was going on? But it was an extremely romantic way to start a relationship.
Hi, I love your channel.
My question for you is: When you are working in the hospital, do you get free food? Or do you have to
bring your own or
pay for your own at the caf? Aha...
Sadly, we have to get our own food somehow, they don't give us any.
But when my grandfather was training to be a general surgeon, apparently he would get a tray of food
just like any other patient tray when he was on call, which I think is a really nice gesture.
It all just depends if you like hospital food or not.
Hi Siobhan, my name is Billy.
I'm an undergrad medical student in Australia.
And I've recently learned about canadian med school backpacks and I'm just dying to know what color are yours and Mark's?
I am so surprised that you know about the Canadian backpacks all the way in Australia. That's amazing!
So every year 1st year medical students across Canada are given backpacks and
every year they're a different color. So for me
my backpack
is green, huge backpack by the way.
And Marks is purple and I'm jealous because purple is my favorite color and this one's very bright.
The best part about this though is when you were walking around, you could actually identify
medical students and you'd know what year they were in. So when we were all interviewing for residency positions and flying across Canada
to be able to go to interviews, you would start to see people with their backpacks in the airport. And you can
walk up and strike up a conversation, ask them where they're going. And it just made it feel like a really nice community.
Sort of like you just entered a club, the medical club. Last question is from Instagram.
What's the best advice you've ever received?
I love that. One of my greatest mentors in music is Mauricio Fuks.
He was my professor and he's an incredible violinist and pedagogue.
And he used to tell me: 'Listen to your inner voice.'
And at the time I thought it just was related to violin, because he would tell me to
dream the sound that I wanted to produce and then practice to be able to make that that sound.
But over time I realized that that was some of the best advice for life.
Because listening to your inner voice means going within
and exploring and dreaming and coming up with what you're passionate about. And I believe that that turning inwards
is how you develop creativity and also
your drive to continue excelling and striving in life.
So for me, it's had this profound impact and
I can't thank him enough for telling me to follow my inner voice.
Alright.
Well, I have enjoyed this so much. It's such a pleasure to be able to read your questions and see
videos and get to know you guys this way. And I just really want to thank everyone who submitted a question.
So if you want to see more videos in the future,
be sure to subscribe and turn on that notification bell, because it really helps me out.
And otherwise I'll be seeing you in the next video. So bye for now!