Still playing catch-up
Right, I think I'll have to go back and get the epic holiday post later.
This week I was at the Royal Free, which was lovely. I was in the plastic surgery department -- but this is NHS plastic surgery, so it wasn't exactly Nip/Tuck, more excising malignant melanomas and rebuilding deformed ears and crushed hands, that sort of thing.
I was given quite the tale of woe by the management lady in charge of my before I was taken in. Apparently, before the beginning of October, this was a lovely compact little plastic surgery department with five consultant surgeons, the appropriate number of registrars, SHOs and secretaries, and all was well, when into the breach lurches Mt Vernon plastic surgery, closed in its entirety due to falling-down buildings, and all its surgeons and their teams to arrive at the Royal Free. But their secretaries didn't come. None of them wanted to commute in daily from Hertfordshire, surprisingly enough.
Anyway, so I was prepared for this massive backlog of work, but it honestly wasn't that bad. I had to audio-type quite a number of clinics dictated by quite a number of different voices, a couple of them near-incomprehensible, but I basically managed it. The big issue was the queries. None of the Mt Vernon patients seem to be properly transferred over. If they're to be seen at the Royal Free, their notes need to be sent over, plus discharge notes dictated by junior doctors and typed by the secretaries at Mt Vernon -- of which there are hardly any as almost all of them have already been shuffled off to other departments in the hospital. So I had patient after patient calling up to ask when their appointments were, and I would have to chase them up with admissions or outpatients, new referrals, Mt Vernon, the computer system, etc etc. And on Friday nobody was answering the phone at Mt V, surprisingly enough!
However, it was still all very nice. I shared an office with a very friendly woman named Janet who had the radio on, which I enjoyed, and chatted quite a lot. It was nine to five and I found a way home that doesn't involve Camden Town -- go via Archway instead -- so I arrived home around six each evening unless I stopped off for groceries or errands.
And next week, I start at the NSPCC! The CRB check isn't even begun, but they're desperate to get me in and working, so I'm starting on a temporary basis next week. It involved racing down to Camden Town in my lunch hour on Wednesday to take my passport (to be photocopied by my boss-to-be after he'd seen the original) and hand over transcripts to McGill (I stupidly brought the ones for SFU instead of the ones for Queen's so that was no good) to stand in the place of a photocopy of my degree certificates, until I can get those from M&K... and I'm to start on a Monday. Apparently, at a temp rate which mirrors what my salary will be, so I'll have more money starting two weeks from now!
Life ain't so bad. But I really must do laundry. And groceries. Ta ra!
This week I was at the Royal Free, which was lovely. I was in the plastic surgery department -- but this is NHS plastic surgery, so it wasn't exactly Nip/Tuck, more excising malignant melanomas and rebuilding deformed ears and crushed hands, that sort of thing.
I was given quite the tale of woe by the management lady in charge of my before I was taken in. Apparently, before the beginning of October, this was a lovely compact little plastic surgery department with five consultant surgeons, the appropriate number of registrars, SHOs and secretaries, and all was well, when into the breach lurches Mt Vernon plastic surgery, closed in its entirety due to falling-down buildings, and all its surgeons and their teams to arrive at the Royal Free. But their secretaries didn't come. None of them wanted to commute in daily from Hertfordshire, surprisingly enough.
Anyway, so I was prepared for this massive backlog of work, but it honestly wasn't that bad. I had to audio-type quite a number of clinics dictated by quite a number of different voices, a couple of them near-incomprehensible, but I basically managed it. The big issue was the queries. None of the Mt Vernon patients seem to be properly transferred over. If they're to be seen at the Royal Free, their notes need to be sent over, plus discharge notes dictated by junior doctors and typed by the secretaries at Mt Vernon -- of which there are hardly any as almost all of them have already been shuffled off to other departments in the hospital. So I had patient after patient calling up to ask when their appointments were, and I would have to chase them up with admissions or outpatients, new referrals, Mt Vernon, the computer system, etc etc. And on Friday nobody was answering the phone at Mt V, surprisingly enough!
However, it was still all very nice. I shared an office with a very friendly woman named Janet who had the radio on, which I enjoyed, and chatted quite a lot. It was nine to five and I found a way home that doesn't involve Camden Town -- go via Archway instead -- so I arrived home around six each evening unless I stopped off for groceries or errands.
And next week, I start at the NSPCC! The CRB check isn't even begun, but they're desperate to get me in and working, so I'm starting on a temporary basis next week. It involved racing down to Camden Town in my lunch hour on Wednesday to take my passport (to be photocopied by my boss-to-be after he'd seen the original) and hand over transcripts to McGill (I stupidly brought the ones for SFU instead of the ones for Queen's so that was no good) to stand in the place of a photocopy of my degree certificates, until I can get those from M&K... and I'm to start on a Monday. Apparently, at a temp rate which mirrors what my salary will be, so I'll have more money starting two weeks from now!
Life ain't so bad. But I really must do laundry. And groceries. Ta ra!