Week Numero Uno

It's been a rather eventful week, and it's not really surprising considering it's the start of my first-ever full-time job. Things haven't been as stressful as the stories I've heard from my colleagues and friends elsewhere, and I guess it's partly to do with the rather efficient service that I've been lucky enough to be part of in my ward.

Was on-call on my first day, and the very first thing I had to do was write up a death certificate for a patient I met during my clinical shadowing. Not exactly the best of ways to start things, but heck, it IS Care of the Elderly. Luckily, I don't think I'll be dealing with much deaths 'cause half of my patients (or more) have come in with a stroke, and those patients tend not to die as often as the other cases.

In the 3 days I've worked, I've done more procedures that I have during my last 3 months of med school - bloods, ABGs, catheters, PRs, venflons and all the little bits of secretarial duties that is the bane of a house officer's life. It's not an exaggeration to state that in many aspects, we're rather glorified secretaries 'cause half the day is taken up filling up forms and charts.

I think doctors are lucky in a way though, 'cause there isn't that much of a change in the transition from being a student to working. Yes, there's more responsibility and you have that nervous thought at the back of your head about fucking up someone's life 'cause you've prescribed the wrong dose of laxatives, but at least we know (more or less) what's expected and how the system works.

I tend to feel tired at the end of the day, but there's enough jobs keeping me going 'till the end of the day so that I don't actually feel tired whilst I'm doing things. Which is good, 'cause the moment you stop, the lethargy sinks in. Which explains the reason I tend to nod off during multi-disciplinary meetings. Either that, or the meetings are just dead boring.

I actually got a kick out of prescribing my first drug (nystatin), visiting the mortuary (which looks rather similar to what I've seen on the telly) and chatting with some of the patients. Of course, interaction was rather limited with some of the others e.g. the one with CJD and the one who hasn't/doesn't want to eat for the past 2 months.

The main downside of things so far is the fact that I'm very busy doing jobs that I don't have any time to sit down and contemplate the things I've seen. I still haven't had the chance to do some revision, and with revision to the patients, I still haven't sat down and gone through their notes and lab results, so I've been unable to fully analyse and understand their situation. So while my practical skills have probably improved (highlight was attempting to flush some saline through a venflon with the tourniquet still on), my knowledge base is still static.

Drove over to Hull with CT and Yus last night, and we arrived back in Newcastle around 2am after having a rather tasty dinner. For some reason (probably 'cause we were still quite awake), we decided to go to Tesco, having picked Elly up. After which we shopped and shopped 'till I fell onto my bed at 4am. The end of a tiring week, but the weekend is bound to be fun and food-filled too - just had some VERY filling nasi lemak courtesy of the girls, will be meeting up with 2 musketeers for some chinese tonight, and will be meeting up with Kudo and Ninie for b'fast tomorrow after having not met them for quite some time.