Week 3 - Internal Medicine Finale!

Monday, October 21st

• Our preceptor gave us the morning to work on our patient presentations from the week before. Don't worry, Amazon cafe was not left out this morning! After the morning flew by, we met Mantha and Vee for lunch in the hospital cafeteria. We loved Guay Tiew Tom Yum so much, we decided to try it again today with more meat added. This was the flavored soup and noodles from last week.

• 1:00pm - The afternoon consisted of medication reconciliations, looking up patients, and providing appropriate care for the internal medicine ward patients. We discussed our patients with our preceptor, and compared treatment options in America for each disease state discussed.

• 5:00pm - Since we had not been to this place except day number 1 in Thailand, we thought we would try out tesco again. This is the grocery store with a lot of little restaurants inside as well. Megan stocked up on her chocolate milk and breakfast bars, and we both headed to The Pizza Company to bring home our dinner "takeaway" style. This place had been recommended every time pizza was mentioned, and it did not disappoint. Megan got a chicken deluxe, and Cynthia ordered pepperoni with cheese-filled bread pizza.

• To end the evening, we did laundry, worked on patient presentations, and started getting our posters ready for Midyear (pharmacy conference in December). Today turned out to be a great day with no rain (luckily). Tomorrow we will get to see Mantha and Vee present on different approaches to chemotherapy.... stay tuned!

Tuesday, October 22nd -> Mama Fonteno is in the building! Whoop whoop!

• 8:00am - today was a very special day, in many ways. It started off at our favorite place where they had Cynthia's order ready when she walked through the door at Amazon cafe!

• 8:30am - We walked in with Mantha and Vee to start the morning looking at patient cases. Later that morning, they had a chemotherapy presentation on four popular medications including vincristine, cyclophosphamide, carboplatin, and paclitaxel. They crushed it! :)

• After their presentation, they took us to a place had not been yet, named MK. It was a family style serve, with a pot in the middle to cook your own food (similar to the melting pot, but all thai food ;)). What we ordered was called Moo Tuk Kai (which translates to pork cracked egg), but it had so many other yummy ingredients as well. We both tried squid for the first time, and have a video that we will show if requested.

• After the unforgettable lunch, we headed back up to the ward for patient discussions, and talked through more disease states with our preceptor Annie.

• 4:30pm - once finished for the day, we headed back to our apartment to work on our patient case presentation, and got ready for Mama Fonteno to come into town! She arrived at 7:00pm that evening, so Mantha offered so kindly to take us to the airport to pick her up.

• 6:15pm - Mantha picked us up from apartment to reach airport at 7:00pm to greet Mama Fonteno :) We ended up having Burger King for dinner, and went to this new restaurant for dessert once arriving back in Hat Yai. We winded down, unpacked Mama's stuff and got a good night sleep.

Wednesday, October 23rd

• Today was a holiday for Thailand, so everyone had this day off work. Joyce (the Pharmacy School Director), and a few pharmacy students planned to take us to Songkhla for the day and give us the grand tour.

• 9:00am - the day of course started out at Amazon cafe, and showed mom the ropes. She ordered the black coffee, and we ended up on a walk around campus, to a beautiful pond area, and back through the hospital.

• 11:45am - the three of us (Cynthia, Megan, Mom) headed to The Limb for lunch, and then to the pharmacy school to meet our tour guides at 1:00pm.
  

• 1:00pm - met with Sitti and other fourth year pharmacy students who took us to Songkhla. We started with the Songkhla beach, and found some shells. There was a mermaid statue, that was good luck if you did a certain pose....so of course we did it! After the statue we headed to a market for some shopping and stopped for water. We then headed to the snake and dragon statue, that is said to look over Songkhla and keep it safe. Our trip continued to visit one of the highest spots, the Tang Kuan Hill. This place had a wonderful view, and we made some new friends with the Monkeys hanging around too :) We made our way to Old Town afterwards, where we tried the special coconut ice cream. Check out the pictures below to see what the "special" ingredient was. After ice cream, we took a walk around to see the city, took in the beautiful scenery, and and tried some Ka Nom Kai (this was delicious little bread bites that tasted like pound cake!). After walking around, we decided the ice cream was so amazing, we had to try it again.

• 5:30pm - The sun was setting and we had about 35 min trip back to Hat Yai, so we headed back. Once arriving, the three of us went to The Limb (for the second time today), and grabbed a quick bite to eat. The sun, the adventures, and amazing day wore us out, so it was up to our rooms and got an early night.

Thursday, October 24th

• 9:00am - Headed to Amazon cafe for a classic black coffee, and we were on our way to rotation for a patient simulation morning.

• 9:30am - met with Mantha and Vee for a patient simulation activity with fourth year pharmacy students. This consisted of multiple patient cases and fourth year pharmacy students had to figure out the problems and communicate well with the fake patients. It was similar to an OSCE scenario.

• Dr. Sutthiporn was in charge of one of the pharmacy student groups, and recommended we get a Thai massage this afternoon. So she and our preceptor Annie booked all three of us an appointment at 1:00pm. After the patient simulation, we headed back to change, grab something to eat, and relax before our first Thai massage!

• 1:00-2:30pm - The massage rooms are in part of the hospital, so Mantha and Vee took us on their lunch break. We changed into the traditional clothing, and of course posed for some pictures before relaxation time!
  

• After the massage, we headed back to the apartment to do some work before dinner. Our preceptor Annie took us out to this authentic Thai restaurant close to town with Mantha, Vee, Ping, Fern, and Aum. It was absolutely delicious! They ordered everything family style so everyone could try a little bit of it all. We had Kaeng-som (spicy soup curry), Moo-Kua-Gleur (fried pork dish), Yum-Pak-Good (spicy crab salad), Pad-pad-riang (stir fry with vegetables), Kam-bua (lotus stem), Kai-Jeaw (omelette), and Poo-pad-prik-Leung (crab with yellow chili). We ended the meal with some ice cream!

• Dinner lasted about 2.5 hours (and it felt like 20 minutes! Time flew), and we were stuffed with food and laughter all the way to the end. This was an amazing meal with great people, and definitely one of our most favorite nights in Thailand so far! :) Our flight for Chiang Mai left at 10:50am the following morning, so it was time to pack and get some rest before weekend adventure #3!!!