heart your heart, love your lung

so .. this is my fourth week (officially) doing clinical rotation in the wards (every weekdays morning). Am currently assigned to respiratory ward(+ tb ward). Well, have to say i learn incredibly a lot from here. never thought heart murmurs sound like they actually do ( i used to think they were some sort of dup-dup sounds, but they turn out to sound like a whooshing wind).

Am also beginning to interpret chest radiography now.. piles of Tb cases i tell you. And half of the guys in the resp. ward are under paliative therapy due to late-stage lung cancer. If you go clarking these patients you'll definitely find in your history taking that they were ex-smokers. ex- HEAVY-smokers. 5-year survival rate is quite low for these guys. coz most lung cancers aren't diagnosed until they're too late. and by the time you found out, there's nothing much you can do about it. only supportive + pain killing treatments. In other (aggressive??) words, you can only wait for them to die... smoking is a killer. really it is.