A bit of hot air.
So much has happened since I last properly considered my life and all that it means, being back here in Singapore after a long time abroad. I miss my friends, I miss my grotty flat, and I've wasted far too many hours looking at photos of good times' past on Facebook and being envious of all the gatherings and parties I've had to click 'not attending' on because I'm not even on the same flipping continent.
I'm still not sure I actually like being a doctor. It's a worthy profession, and you do (hopefully) make a difference in people's lives if you don't screw things up and play by the rules; but so do postmen and bus-drivers and teachers and practically every other useful member of society. Which is precisely what my Old Bean said to me when I was burbling to him in a state of frustrated pre-exam stress insanity earlier this year.
I think my biggest bugbear is the uncomfortable sense of a sort of intellectual limbo, of not really knowing what I should know, what I should try to know and what I don't know anymore... and how to fill in all those gaping holes in an organised manner. Nobody tells you that in order to do this job well, you have to really LIKE people. And it's not just the poor sick patients who need looking after, but also the relatively well ones who are in B1 wards because their company's paying for their stay and therefore demand their right to request for every possible treatment under the sun, in addition to an extended MC. One patient even had to gall to tell me I had to write his wife an MC, so that she could look after him.
You have to like looking after patients, their wives, their long-suffering relatives with a million complaints about the most minute details, like how the porter accidentally bumped the trolley on the way up to the ward, and can you please tell your nurses to stop taking blood from my father even though I know he's sick, because medical technology is so advanced that surely there's a better way of doing things? And how come you all don't know how to treat my mother's diabetes properly, always say it's poorly-controlled - but yes, I've been sneaking her sweets and drinks because aiyah your hospital food tastes so bad she got no appetite, you want her to starve meh?
You also have to really enjoy talking on the phone, not just to your nurses, but also irate radiologists, consultants who disagree on what you should be doing... but the worst of the lot have got to be the nurses. Especially the ones who call you up repeatedly during a busy night call to relay some truly insignificant data, just so that they can scribble in the case-notes "Noted by Dr ___" whether or not they've relayed the information with any degree of accuracy.
It's not all bad though. At the end of the day (or night) when we have a chance to grab a breather together, it's good fun catching up on gossip with some of them. Nurses have some incredible high-speed information network that definitely rivals our laupok intranet system, I kid you not. And I have a lot of respect for those who are in it because they genuinely care for even the smelliest, grumpiest sickest of the lot. Because for all their hot-aired, save the world, MBBS-talk, doctors are ultimately shielded from most of the muck, and that's a fact. Not to mention all the molly-coddling that every single brand spankin' new house officer has to go through at the beginning, at the stage where most advice from the senior staff should be taken as pearls of wisdom (chucked before swine etc etc, that's the way it goes).
And hey, that most of our work goes unrecognised just makes it that much sweeter when you get an expected compliment, letter of thanks, or a cheery bald-headed greeting from a wheelchair trundling down the corridor from that cancer-patient you never expected to live past your last posting...
And well, it must be said some things just don't change. Like how all it takes is lots of some booze in the company of friends to put the smile back on my face, at least long enough to survive another day. Although the occasional beach holiday or shopping trip, really doesn't hurt either. :)
P.S. Christine I'm coming back in late June!! At least for a bit. xx
I'm still not sure I actually like being a doctor. It's a worthy profession, and you do (hopefully) make a difference in people's lives if you don't screw things up and play by the rules; but so do postmen and bus-drivers and teachers and practically every other useful member of society. Which is precisely what my Old Bean said to me when I was burbling to him in a state of frustrated pre-exam stress insanity earlier this year.
I think my biggest bugbear is the uncomfortable sense of a sort of intellectual limbo, of not really knowing what I should know, what I should try to know and what I don't know anymore... and how to fill in all those gaping holes in an organised manner. Nobody tells you that in order to do this job well, you have to really LIKE people. And it's not just the poor sick patients who need looking after, but also the relatively well ones who are in B1 wards because their company's paying for their stay and therefore demand their right to request for every possible treatment under the sun, in addition to an extended MC. One patient even had to gall to tell me I had to write his wife an MC, so that she could look after him.
You have to like looking after patients, their wives, their long-suffering relatives with a million complaints about the most minute details, like how the porter accidentally bumped the trolley on the way up to the ward, and can you please tell your nurses to stop taking blood from my father even though I know he's sick, because medical technology is so advanced that surely there's a better way of doing things? And how come you all don't know how to treat my mother's diabetes properly, always say it's poorly-controlled - but yes, I've been sneaking her sweets and drinks because aiyah your hospital food tastes so bad she got no appetite, you want her to starve meh?
You also have to really enjoy talking on the phone, not just to your nurses, but also irate radiologists, consultants who disagree on what you should be doing... but the worst of the lot have got to be the nurses. Especially the ones who call you up repeatedly during a busy night call to relay some truly insignificant data, just so that they can scribble in the case-notes "Noted by Dr ___" whether or not they've relayed the information with any degree of accuracy.
It's not all bad though. At the end of the day (or night) when we have a chance to grab a breather together, it's good fun catching up on gossip with some of them. Nurses have some incredible high-speed information network that definitely rivals our laupok intranet system, I kid you not. And I have a lot of respect for those who are in it because they genuinely care for even the smelliest, grumpiest sickest of the lot. Because for all their hot-aired, save the world, MBBS-talk, doctors are ultimately shielded from most of the muck, and that's a fact. Not to mention all the molly-coddling that every single brand spankin' new house officer has to go through at the beginning, at the stage where most advice from the senior staff should be taken as pearls of wisdom (chucked before swine etc etc, that's the way it goes).
And hey, that most of our work goes unrecognised just makes it that much sweeter when you get an expected compliment, letter of thanks, or a cheery bald-headed greeting from a wheelchair trundling down the corridor from that cancer-patient you never expected to live past your last posting...
And well, it must be said some things just don't change. Like how all it takes is lots of some booze in the company of friends to put the smile back on my face, at least long enough to survive another day. Although the occasional beach holiday or shopping trip, really doesn't hurt either. :)
P.S. Christine I'm coming back in late June!! At least for a bit. xx