Good and bad

Its hard when someone questions your profesionalism. It even feels humiliated and sickening when the one who does that is a 19 year old kid.

I was paged to resite an IV line for this patient with quinsy as he needs IV antibiotics. Having know that he is a young bloke I took a casual approach and trying to be easy going with him... he has good veins, but somehow his skin is tougher than anyone else I have ever inserted an IV line... twice I got the flashback of blood twice I went too far and puncture the vein.

There came the problem... he started to be a bit shaky and yell at me, telling me to do it properly. I told him, calmly and gently, that I was doing it properly and carefully, its just that sometimes we need some luck with it too regardless how skillful a person is. Being as ignorant as he is, he kept arguing with me and said how unprofessional I was. Fine, screw you dude, I then told him that if you werent happy and did not trust me, I would be more than happy to get someone else to do that, so be it. No idea what happened to him later, but he was discharged when I was doing my consecutive night.

I did question myself after that incidence... I suck at it dont I? I couldn't even put in an IV line for a young person, how shitty my skill is? Almost couldn't sleep the whole day as his voice and statements kept surrounding my head. I have even dreamt that Prof. Collins, the head of our department, called me up to his office and said it in my face "YOU SUCK!". Gosh. I almost thought its real.

People say, when something bad happens, something good will happen too.

Not really something extremely delighting, but it does help me recover my confidence after that incidence. Another big lady who needed an IV resite... I went there and got it done on first attempt. Came out and the nurse was looking at me, saying "Gezz you got it done? Her last IV was done by an anesthetic reg... good on you!". *smile*

Another elderly lady who needed an IV resite too... after I have done with her, she said to me "Thanks a lot doctor, you are really gentle." *smile*

Tiny matters, but I do enjoy every single moments.

Commitment (and doctor's handwriting)

I started to wonder if I'm commited to my job, to be a doctor. I don't seem to have a choice now though as I have spent 6 years of study and graduated and I'm 25 (old enough to stop studying full time I reckon), but laziness is surfacing lately and I'm really having a hard time fighting it off.

Perhaps its because I'm doing night duty and I don't receive much support from other doctors, no one teaches me, no one tells me what to do when I'm in the middle of nowhere. The only place I can find a solution is from the internet. I wonder if I would need daily antipsychotic medication if I worked in those days when internet did not exist.

And when I'm not working, everyone else is working. No one comes out with me, no one does sports with me, I'm simply all alone all the time. Or I'm just simply tired after 2 or 3 consecutive night duties and I need to rest or so. Girl friend not with me, parents in M'sia, argh!

Perhaps I should only question my commitment after I start my next rotation -- medicine. I believe i will have a busy working life when that rotation begins, and if I still find myself a slacko or lazy arse, then perhaps I should sound the alarm.

.....

Many people think night duty is relaxing as we get 7 days off per forthnight, and we work only 7 days but still make up the full time 76 hours salary, and we don't get busy nights as often as everyday. The thing is we are always being placed in the position to make moderate decisions on patients who we don't know at all. 'Don't know' in the sense that we are not taking care of them normally but the treating medical/surgical team. And the most #$*(* annoying thing is when I try to sit down and read up the history, I can't read a single %(#@$*. I wonder why there are so many doctors with spastic or paralytic hands or fingers, they all write in random fonts and patterns in which only their own brain can recognise. Trust me, I'm the only doctor in this hospital who hvae decent handwriting.

I strongly suggest the medical faculty of each universities to spend half a rotation to improve potential doctors' handwriting. Or at least, fix up their spastic hands first.

Orite, I should stop whining and bitching. I just got paged by a nurse and I got job to do now... hopefully its gonna be peaceful for the remaining hours.

Sang Yee