1 month into my job!

1 month (and a week!) into my job, i've had fabulous days and awful-it's-all-going-down-the-drain-and-i-want-to-cry-so-badly days. but i'm surviving, oh yes i am :D

to whoever's following my blog, i am so honoured, really i am! can't believe anyone would want to read what i write, so thank you :D

just finished my 7th call on sat morning, dealing with (some) private patients really makes my blood boil. first you refuse all painkiller jabs, then you complain of pain, what do you expect me to do? to put my hand on you and say, "oh you're healed!" :( :( this boggles the mind.

plus there was a violent patient on my call too, scary stuff. lucky they called in 4 hunky young policemen (hahahaha eye candy for my weary eyes!) to escort the patient down. oh dearie me. my attending for the night came out of the room waving his hands in the air and clutching at his hair, wailing about why this had to happen to him. HAHAHA.

had dinner at 2 am, urghhhh stomach rumbled loudly all the way till then! but at least i had time to change at eat dinner at 2 am, hehe. so that's something to be grateful for!

had to call my resident to set a plug, one that i kept missing :( poor lady, i think she was going to cry! and my resident came, took one look at her and said, "oh look, there is a HUGE vein here, so BIG." and proceeded to glare at me as though i was some idiot, as if i didn't feel bad enough already, thanks. RARRRRR. and then, she proceeded to MISS THAT VERY HUGE BIG VEIN herself. WOWEEEE. i didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the patient's bedside!!!!! OMG.
in the end she picked an antecubital vein to poke (one that i could have gotten, arghhh). and she left me there with the patient who was complaining that she couldn't bend her elbow :( :( uh-oh i felt so super bad. arghhhh.

but morning came! and i had time for breakfast with the other interns, who were all as tired and weary as i was- coffee from the small cafe downstairs is a great perk me up! :D

survival rounds in the morning were madeness, i discharged 12 patients from one ward on top of doing post-natal rounds (patients that the resident didn't see! arghhh) and had to run up to the private ward to settle all kinds of ridiculous things. ARGHHHHHH.

managed to leave at 230 pm post-call, picked up my ringing phone on the train home only to hear one of my fellow interns in tears due to backstabbing from nurses and another intern. OH DEAR :( :( :( the poor girl!

ah this has been a depressing post, calls are generally depressing, ah well.
but i have to say that i love my new ward (we changeover every 2 weeks), and my onco attending is amazingly nice :D i adore him to bits and pieces!!!!
remind me to blog about labour ward next time! :D

quick update

thus ends my 1st week in the labour ward! i have done 3 episiotomies, delivered a baby, seen an IUD (saddest thing ever), seen a cord prolapse, endured loads of shittiness and made friends with the residents.

the 2 residents on my side are SUPER NICE :D i am so thankful to them! esp when i bung the iv cannulae (we have to set 18 G ones, arghhh), they will willingly do it for me. super nice :D

got to go to the OR to assist in a caesar, SO EXCITING. the senior resident laughed at me when i jumped as they ripped the membranes and the liquor gushed all over my hand. hahahaha. clearly i have not assisted in a caesar before! but it was SO EXCITING, esp when i had to "cpr" the abdomen to push the baby out! :D of course, i ended of with blood all over my shoes and pants. arghhh. thankfully i'm not washing them though :P

i think i love deliveries, nothing beats them!!! :D

have finished my 3 calls in 6 days, that was exhausting and i hope i dont' have another set coming up that fast :\ esp since i had a patient with a stroke on the call and i had to call a neurologist from another hospital about the patient, which was hell because i had to call the other hospital 5 times before getting a human being to talk to me. ARGH. plus there were 2 AMA discharges on my call, one at 8 pm, and one at 2 am. so i had to type all the whole discharge summary!!! :\ oh gosh. but i think it's still better than having the patient desat on me as per my sunday call. eeks.

remind me to write about the cord prolapse another day!

i hate calls :(

had my 2nd call on thursday in the labour ward this time round, i barely survived! :\

(for your info: a call is when you work all day and then go on "call" at night, so that the rest of the team can sleep in peace. in short, you (and the others on call) are left holding the fort at the hospital till daybreak when the rest arrive at the hospital again, ready and refreshed to begin a new day! my weekday calls are from 430 pm to 8 am, weekend from 730 am to 1230 pm the next day, depending.)

labour ward is so so tough, i barely know enough to scribe in the case notes and the loud ticking away of the CTG machine makes it really hard for me to hear what the residents are saying when reporting their VE/CTG findings. plus the masks we're all wearing means i can't lipread to save my life either. :\
thankfully, this being a medical profession, means that the senior doctors are usually a bit more understanding once they find out i wear hearing aids! :) the only thing i need to learn now is to start pointing out that i do wear hearing aids. sigh.

did my first episiotomy repair (with lots of begging to get another resident to come supervise me, he isn't a very nice fellow but i didn't have a choice- those on my side were all in the OR for a crash caesar :\) thankfully it went quite well, wasn't a very big tear. so that's well and good! :D
managed to do it quite quick, must say that the pelvic trainer session we had was super useful!!!! :D

both the senior residents were super nice and patient with me and my slowness, they patiently dragged the tables outside the rooms and yelled their orders into my ears while attempting to teach me. plus my JRs were fabulous, doing the plugs i failed without complaining much and showing me how to do cord blood pHs.

i felt so bad!!!! :\ esp when i failed 8 out of the 10 plugs i set :( i keep bunging the veins, i really really need more practice. thank God my friend, G, was on call with me, so i could ask her for some help here and there.
it was even worse when she had to go to the OR to help with a crash caesar and i was the only one left in the ward of 24 beds :\ tonnes of paperwork, harried midwives and nurses, scared/irritated/pained/grouchy/demanding patients to see! oh my.

the midwives were fantastic, they asked me to dilute all the penicillins and hang up the drips before i slept at 445 so i wouldn't have to wake up at 5 plus to give all the drips, they'd do it themselves. SO NICE. when they heard i needed to do deliveries, they instantly pulled me into a room to observe a delivery that was ongoing (unfortunately, i had to leave early to go do paperwork for a crash caesar. arghhhhh). but i was so touched :D

G and i were so depressed on call, we started a countdown timer to the end of call! we wanted to watch american idol, but sadly, we had work to do just as it started :( oh well.

it was my last day in the same day admits clinic and the ward, i was honestly rather sad to go! :\ the ward nurses have been super nice to me :D today a patient had a hamper of fruit delivered to the ward, and the nurses wanted to give us some fruit, but S and i agreed they'd done far more than us, so we had a banana each. hehe :D so cute, i love the nurses. and there wasn't much work to do on the last day as well :D

took off at 245 post-call, fell asleep while standing on the train, waiting for the bus, riding the escalator down - so dangerous! in the end i cabbed home from the train station as it was pouring and i was so tired. ooph.

having 3 calls in the next 6 days, hope i survive without making major mistakes!

first call

thus ends my first call - on a sunday, no less!

thankfully, my good call luck seems to be holding! :D must really give thanks that every plug and blood i took (except one, and even my JR couldn't set that!) was really easily done and most were on the first try! :D was still feeling extremely demoralised after thurs where i failed every single one but this is proof that there is a God out there for He must really have heard my pleas :D

but then again, to put things in perspective - i was on my feet from 730 am to 640 pm, the only sitting down was doing discharges. :\
i only got to eat "lunch" at 9 pm - i am so slow at doing stuff! :( thankfully the nurses were all v nice and understanding as to why i was so lousy and useless and they were telling me to stop being so frazzled and to take my time. hahaha i love nurses!!!! :D

my phone stopped ringing around 9 pm, and i managed to bathe and squeeze in about 4 hours of sleep overall in between running to see a new patient with CA cervix (and also HIV positive, super scary drawing bloods, i double-gloved and tried to use as few needles as possible!) who's Hb was 4.6 - had to call for emergency bloods and monitor her closely, and another septic patient with an intra-abdominal abscess for urgent CT scan (there was no end of fighting between the nurses and the radiologist - the nurses insisted she was to be NBM but the radiologist insisted on oral contrast - so i solved it by calling the attending in charge, who was super nice and even sounded appreciative that i called to update him. whew!) :D

went off post-call at 330 pm, my dad had to text me to tell me to go home! thankfully my friend protected me from the nurses by saying i was post-call and forcibly shooing me out of the ward so they wouldn't ask me to do anymore work. very very thankful for that.

so i survived my first call in the peripheral wards, next call is come thursday in the labour ward! hopefully i get to see a couple of deliveries and i get to learn episiotomy repair :D