On the schedule for yesterday's hospital rotation was Surgery/Urology. After meeting our precepting physician at the Operating Theatres we were led to the Male Surgical Ward to conduct a history and physical on a pleasant 57 year old male complaining of painful and dribbling urination, as well as frank hematuria (blood in the urine) for the past 4 days. We spent an inordinate amount of time on, and delved deep into the man's history of present illness, past illnesses, social history, etc. in a vain attempt to find a surgical reason for his problems. Despite our precepting physician's initial glimmer of hope that the gentleman may need a minor, 15-minute surgical procedure, unfortunately once again we did not get to scrub in for any surgery. Instead, he was diagnosed with clot retention, and his management would consist of foley catheter placement. The cause of the clot was thought to be a bleeding prostate, which formed a blood clot, causing urine in the bladder to back up, as well as the blood in the urine.

After our hospital rotation, it was back to campus for an evening lecture: OSHA Blood-Borne Pathogens. I'm even in a foreign country, and I still can't escape the grasp of OSHA. Kinda sucked though, since I am certified to teach the class, and two of the people I am sharing a car with had current certifications and we could have skipped the class, except the 4th person sharing the car had never been through the class, so we all had to stay. Oh well, it gave me a good opportunity to register to take the [1] USMLE I, and rid myself of a nice chunk of change ($695 to be exact.) Now that I've registered, I guess that means I should start studying for it…