life of a houseofficer in medicine (1)

it's been a long while since i actually had time to sit down and type on the computer.. heck, it's been a while since i actually got to do anything except work..

the experience has been overwhelming.. glad my family is down for the weekend and that my specialist gave my half the day off at least.. it's a relief because i'm now working with a very difficult medical officer who is an a**. My night mare started since this week thanks to the rotation and change of medical officers in my ward..

for a start, she stresses me out and because of that, i tend to make mistakes in my work. Every mistake that i make is amplified like i've done the most unforgivable thing on earth.. the worst is the verbal insults i have to endure.. things like her telling me she hates doing rounds with me, and threats that she can make me take blood from patients two or three times a day just for the heck of it..and no, she does not correct my mistakes, but only amplifies it, and probably tells it to the rest of the *gossip* gang of medical officers..

the worst is the fact that she's extended my tagging.. i was suppose to be off on tuesday or wednesday, but because of her backstabbing me with my specialist, i'm still tagging now.. she openly tells me she's the meanest medical officer in the hospital and that she will not hesitate to make my life difficult.. in a way, i'm kind of glad i'm still tagging cause if i'm on call, i'll be alone :p

imagine working with an a** like that. She has even threatened to kick me out of the ward next week if i don't do my work properly :s i think work means, carrying out her orders..

my patients actually ask me if i'm actually staying in the ward cause they see me from 7a.m till 12a.m everyday.. it is tiring, i will not deny it.. and for a moment, i thought my strength had left me because of that a**. There were moments when i was so busy with work and discharge summaries that one evening, i just sobbed quietly while discharging my patients in the ward.. i had to discharge about 10 patients from the ward, write down their stuff in the file, and also write their medications, endorse their MC's, write their follow up cards and memos to other clinics if needed, and discharge summaries... being a new person, so much of work is crazy.. and it doesn't help when my a** medical officer discharges so many patients at like 5p.m..

it doesn't help when the patients keep coming to the counter to ask when will i be done, when will they be able to go home etc.. it's not their fault, as i have too much work to handle by myself and they want to go home a.s.a.p..

there were moments when i broke down and cried in the paper room in the ward, with a friend who empathized with my condition and gave me encouragement.. there were moments when i felt like God was so far away, but I knew He gave me strength and He sent the right people at the right time to minister to me, and from there, I got the strength to go on..

yesterday, i finally told my specialist that i really needed off on saturday as my family was here, and thankfully she was very understanding.. i've been working about 18 hours a day for the last 2 weeks plus (17 days in fact) and getting about 5 hours of sleep a day, plus no lunch and dinner on most days.. i actually broke down and told her the whole truth about everything that has been happening.. she gave me a lot of encouragement and i honestly felt better after that and my spirit was lifted so that i could work better after that..

i've lost a LOT of weight, and i'm glad that i actually have my grandparents here as it really would be depressing to be alone in a weird place with a** medical officers who are proud of ridiculous things like telling me that she's the meanest (apparently) in the hospital, and fond of kissing the specialist's hand, foot and whatever ground the specialist walks on but turning into ms hyde when specialist is not there.. i have learned only one thing from her: NOT to be like her, cause people like her will probably not go far in life..

i have not learned how to manage my patients from her. All I've learned is from other people: specialists, colleagues, nurses, and patients. She actually outrightly says that nurses are not on the same level of qualification as us, or maybe she means herself, cause I personally think nurses are the more experienced people and they know the ward better than us! Plus, you'd be surprised at how many of them are superbly skilled in setting lines and taking blood from difficult patients..and they don't mind helping you out if you're nice to them..

it's been an eyeopening experience.. i love talking to my patients.. as i take their blood, i explain to them why i'm doing it, as i put chemo for them, i tell them what i know about nano technology, and about chemo ports.. i don't agree that chemo can be given via branulas.. one of my patients developed methicillin resistance staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection in the isolation ward because her skin was chemically burned while one of the chemo drugs was being pushed into her veins... and her white cell count at one point was 0.3. Normal white cell count was 4 to 11. You can imagine what her immune system was like. And she is on a 22 day chemo cycle for leukaemia. She shares with me her longing to go home, to be home, to be out of the hosp as i slowly push in her chemo, and encourage her telling her to hang in there as we both count down the days left before her chemo ends.. She has already had so much of difficulties with the lines-- we inserted a

femoral line: her right thigh became swollen
right jugular line: it accidentally came off
left jugular line: her whole neck became swollen
her arms, left and right: all bruised, swollen, bunked, and finally, chemically burned because of chemo with this MRSA infection, where we're now flushing her with intravenous vancomycin

should a patient have to endure this? i asked her if she was in pain. She said no. I think the pain was worth being endured because she wanted to go home so much..

yesterday, i spent about 2 hours giving chemo via another arm line to an 18 year old girl diagnosed with gastric cancer. I learned my lesson with the first patient, and i was determined not to let this 18 year old girl get chemical burns with this chemo.. so i slowly flushed her line, educated her and her mum about drips, and how to look after branula sites, and chemo ports..

we had an interesting conversation, with me trying to encourage her to live life to the fullest.. she wanted to be a nurse..

so many stories, so many things i've learned over the past 2 weeks plus.. as i peek into the lives of each patient and their families, i find my strength to go on despite having an a** to work with.. i will do my best, and she will still be an a** at the end of the day, because her ego is too big, but she doesn't realize how small she is in the eyes of the staff and the people she works with.. she has a group of medical officers who gossip about houseofficers and whatever else.. She was very proudly telling my specialist yesterday how she left 3 other colleagues of hers to do clinic some time this week on purpose and that she had actually managed to persuade other medical officers to boycott the 3 colleagues as well.. the 3 colleagues had to see about 40 + patients between the 3 of them the whole morning..

i don't know why anyone would want to be proud of that honestly.. it's something disgustingly wrong because the patients are paying the price, not the doctors, as each consultation would either take shorter or longer time, depending on the people.. and the patients would then carry on that impression that gov hospital staff are SLOW, useless, and heartless cause we'd have to rush through every patient to finish work before the afternoon group of pts arrive..

there are only 2 houseofficers in my ward: me and another girl.. we take care of 2 cubicles each and try to share the isolation ward.. my cubicles had about 17 patients this week at one time.. it was insanity.. there were extra beds!



welcome to hospital politics :)