I never ever plan to do forensic medicine as my elective, even a flash of though in my mind.
I think of palliative care, neurology under a doctor in Dubai, cardiology under an experienced doctor I knew. However, God closed each of my choice. And coincidentally, I met with a funny forensic pathologist who always joke around during classes and made the subject interesting.
Without any choices left, I went to forensic medicine praying every day that there will be no cases. So that, I will be able to avoid the most unwanted fouling strong smell of dead body.
So, sometimes (most of the time) things went to the opposite direction.
Once, someone told me if you can excel in the thing you dislike, that's only called excellent.
I was challenging myself to see autopsy every day for almost 3 weeks which everyone will show a grimace face when mentioning it.
I prayed "no case, no case, no case, no case" once I entered the hospital area until the forensic department entrance.
Every time, I saw people gathered in front- police, friends, family members. The big truck that carried the bodies always parked in front.
If I saw no people were gathering in front of forensic department, my lips would curve until the end of my cheeks. But, soon after sitting in the meeting room, there will definitely be someone came and told me:" Kin Luoi, today got cases, just come in". Seriously????
And, I remembered "that's only called excellent". (I use this as a push for myself to be proactive in my forensic medicine posting)
My friends and I joined in every teaching sessions and attend every post-mortem cases.
We saw wide variety of cases:
Skeleton ( which awed me until my jaw dropped to my chest level as by examining the skeleton we can have some ideas about the cause of death and its manner)
Road traffic accidents with multiple injuries as young as 16
Construction site accident with high impact injuries, one of it is the most bloody post-mortem that I see (Someone just lost his/her father that day)
Burnt dead body in a car accident who required to be identified
Decomposed bodies ( I told my friend I will break my own life record if I go down in the decomposed body autopsy as the smell is stringent and 10 times higher concentration of usual autopsy smell, and I break my record)
Sudden death as young as 2 months old.
Gunshot dead.
Strangulation.
Today, one pregnant mother was knocked down by a car when crossing road. I hold my breath and calm myself when seeing the little fetus was taken out of the uterus. Telling myself to be professional, learning my anatomy, learning about the wound, think about the cause of death, asking relevant question and put away my emotion first. Be fair to every case.
And, today is my last day in forensic.
End of the day, I go to have a better dinner with my friends as a celebration of our posting completion.
Then, I think of every cases I saw and I thank all the victims for the learning opportunity. And, I think about life. How worse can it be? I think about death. Life and death can be in 1 sec distance.
I think there must be a reason for everything happens. I am kind of more opened to what bad things happen in my life.
May my prayers soothe the souls.
Lessons I learn in this interesting posting:
Aging is a blessing.
Road is much more brutal than a desperate tiger.
Hatred can kill someone mercilessly
Accident has no warnings
Love life
Learning to see good things in every day even in a bad day.
And I have not regret to do forensic medicine as my elective. Some more, I admire and respect all the forensic pathologist for their dedicated contribution and their tolerance to the strong smell.
Life goes on.
