This is Bugging Me
Dear registrars,
I understand that you somehow feel that you are above and beyond the digital dictation system and that you must dictate everything on tiny transcription cassettes. Fine. However, there are a few rules that should really apply if you're going to circumnavigate a system that's put in place for your own benefit.
1) If you do not have a dictaphone, find one.
1a) Ditto dictaphone tapes.
2) If you are going to borrow a dictaphone from your colleagues, take their tape out of it first.
3) If you cannot find a tape and insist on dictating an entire clinic on top of the one the other registrar has already dictated on that tape, for the love of every god, mark it down on the tape's envelope.
4) Likewise ... leave us the gods-damned notes for the clinic you just dictated.
If you do not follow these simple rules, the following things are very likely to happen.
- Secretary finishes typing long clinic
- Secretary notes that there are no more notes
- Secretary thinks that tape is done
- Secretary erases tape
- Secretary dumps tape back into collective of tapes for use of registrars
- Letters do not get typed
- People get in trouble
- You look like you never dictated it
In other news, I finally dragged myself to the doctor for this vicious 'this is worse than a cold' thing that has been plaguing me for the last three weeks. I don't like seeing doctors for this kind of thing, mostly because it has been amply demonstrated to me that they honestly don't give a shit. You wait two hours for someone to actually see you at all and, despite the symptoms that have not gone away and have only worsened over the last two weeks, I got a shrug and a "come back if it gets any worse". See, there's always a question in these scenarios whether the infection is viral or bacterial. Thing is, if you listen to patient history, it's generally easy to tell which it's likely to be. So, when even a cursory Google search tells you that you're at high risk of things like this being strep throat if your immune system's being overtaxed because of fighting off a cold (which I have been) or by a terrible lot of stress (hello; my job), and the patient tells you that they had a cold a few weeks ago, started showing improvement and then suddenly got worse, odds are high that it's strep throat. I know that we're supposed to be careful about using antibiotics on things that don't need them so as not to breed antibiotic-resistent bugs, but on this one, handing over a penicillin prescription is playing good odds. Except they're not, in this case. I cannot afford to spend another two hours in a waiting room for someone to tell me to do what I was already doing when things got worse.
I should be more charitable, I know that. For the most part, the NHS is there when you need it. It's not the NHS itself I'm annoyed with - it's those parts of it who really don't give a shit so long as they don't get complained about or fired. I've had some bad luck with doctors lately in that I get the ones who handwave stuff I can't afford to just let sit around, and it really puts me off seeing anyone unless it's by ambulance. When it's something like some of the migraine shit I've been going through, or something like strep where the bacterial infection can spread to some pretty important bits of the body if left untreated, that's not the kind of thing I really want to think about.
I see a lot of different sides of the NHS, and I wouldn't be without it, but it does need a major overhaul. Let's start with sacking a few useless managers and all of the individuals who only still have their jobs because of how hard it is to fire people from the NHS (particularly the ones languishing in admin jobs of all pay grades; I'm talking gross incompetence and outright laziness here as sacking offences) and hire people who will actually do their jobs properly.
Essentially, all I want at this point is colleagues who don't linger for 45 minutes over overloud conversations and a qualified medical person who is going to actually pay some attention to the fact that I might actually be sick with something that requires more than paracetamol and vitamin C to treat. I can't afford to be this far off my game, not even if Christmas is coming up. It's not like I get anything but the bank holidays off...
Cross-posted from http://thessalian.dreamwidth.org/83466.html. Comments here or there; either way works fine.
I understand that you somehow feel that you are above and beyond the digital dictation system and that you must dictate everything on tiny transcription cassettes. Fine. However, there are a few rules that should really apply if you're going to circumnavigate a system that's put in place for your own benefit.
1) If you do not have a dictaphone, find one.
1a) Ditto dictaphone tapes.
2) If you are going to borrow a dictaphone from your colleagues, take their tape out of it first.
3) If you cannot find a tape and insist on dictating an entire clinic on top of the one the other registrar has already dictated on that tape, for the love of every god, mark it down on the tape's envelope.
4) Likewise ... leave us the gods-damned notes for the clinic you just dictated.
If you do not follow these simple rules, the following things are very likely to happen.
- Secretary finishes typing long clinic
- Secretary notes that there are no more notes
- Secretary thinks that tape is done
- Secretary erases tape
- Secretary dumps tape back into collective of tapes for use of registrars
- Letters do not get typed
- People get in trouble
- You look like you never dictated it
In other news, I finally dragged myself to the doctor for this vicious 'this is worse than a cold' thing that has been plaguing me for the last three weeks. I don't like seeing doctors for this kind of thing, mostly because it has been amply demonstrated to me that they honestly don't give a shit. You wait two hours for someone to actually see you at all and, despite the symptoms that have not gone away and have only worsened over the last two weeks, I got a shrug and a "come back if it gets any worse". See, there's always a question in these scenarios whether the infection is viral or bacterial. Thing is, if you listen to patient history, it's generally easy to tell which it's likely to be. So, when even a cursory Google search tells you that you're at high risk of things like this being strep throat if your immune system's being overtaxed because of fighting off a cold (which I have been) or by a terrible lot of stress (hello; my job), and the patient tells you that they had a cold a few weeks ago, started showing improvement and then suddenly got worse, odds are high that it's strep throat. I know that we're supposed to be careful about using antibiotics on things that don't need them so as not to breed antibiotic-resistent bugs, but on this one, handing over a penicillin prescription is playing good odds. Except they're not, in this case. I cannot afford to spend another two hours in a waiting room for someone to tell me to do what I was already doing when things got worse.
I should be more charitable, I know that. For the most part, the NHS is there when you need it. It's not the NHS itself I'm annoyed with - it's those parts of it who really don't give a shit so long as they don't get complained about or fired. I've had some bad luck with doctors lately in that I get the ones who handwave stuff I can't afford to just let sit around, and it really puts me off seeing anyone unless it's by ambulance. When it's something like some of the migraine shit I've been going through, or something like strep where the bacterial infection can spread to some pretty important bits of the body if left untreated, that's not the kind of thing I really want to think about.
I see a lot of different sides of the NHS, and I wouldn't be without it, but it does need a major overhaul. Let's start with sacking a few useless managers and all of the individuals who only still have their jobs because of how hard it is to fire people from the NHS (particularly the ones languishing in admin jobs of all pay grades; I'm talking gross incompetence and outright laziness here as sacking offences) and hire people who will actually do their jobs properly.
Essentially, all I want at this point is colleagues who don't linger for 45 minutes over overloud conversations and a qualified medical person who is going to actually pay some attention to the fact that I might actually be sick with something that requires more than paracetamol and vitamin C to treat. I can't afford to be this far off my game, not even if Christmas is coming up. It's not like I get anything but the bank holidays off...
Cross-posted from http://thessalian.dreamwidth.org/83466.html. Comments here or there; either way works fine.