Critical Care

I’m coming into the halfway point of my F2 attachment in Critical Care. Initially, I was quite nervous with the prospect of being in an Intensive Therapy Unit as the patients would all (obviously) be rather complicated cases and hell, I wasn’t even sure what half the machines on the unit were called, let alone what they were used for. Ok, maybe I exaggerate a little.

Despite the initial apprehensiveness, I must say that I’ve been thoroughly enjoying myself, and there are plenty of reasons for that.

From an educational point of view, I’m on a steep learning curve. The aforementioned ITU machines are less scary now, the patients appear more manageable and I quite literally learn something new everyday. The unit itself is meant to be the 3rd best in the country and after spending the morning at the unit, I get the option of going into the operating theatres, where I get more theoretical and practical knowledge. I’ve intubated patients and I’ve placed a femoral line in, among others; procedures that made me grin from ear to ear although they’re probably relatively simple to more experienced docs. Next on the list is to get a central line in. Being on the medical on-call rota also helps me keep up-to-date with the medical side of things, so I'm pretty much enjoying the best of both worlds now.

More importantly, the folks in the department are nice (everyone seems to be either heavily involved in cycling or running) and there’s almost a charming family-like atmosphere within the anaesthetic department. I’m continuously amazed by the amount of knowledge that these folks seem to possess, and luckily for me, they’re quite happy to impart that knowledge and are pretty supportive of my training and education.

Other fringe benefits are the fact that I wear scrubs all day (hence me not having to do the dreaded ironing of shirts!) and the availability of good coffee (freshly brewed in a coffee machine every morning and not the crap you tend to get on the wards).

There are downsides naturally – having to wake up relatively early for the 0800 handover for example. Or going from not being told off at all to being told off rather regularly! But I don’t really mind to be honest, as it’s not really being told off but rather being picky with the details, and if my presentations and management plans are going to be questioned down to the details, I won’t mind in the slightest as long as it helps make me a better doc.

Of the more than a dozen folks that I regularly come in contact with, there are probably only a couple that seem to have a permanent frown affixed onto their faces. But they're pretty much like that all the time, and heck, you can't expect everyone to be happy and cheerful all the time eh?

I'll be going out with a few of them tonight to catch a ballet and to grab an Italian dinner. Swan Lake's on the menu, and Tchaikovsky's always a good piece of music to chew on. And then I start nights tomorrow and it'll be a case of counting down for the next 7 nights!