Working hard is hard work

14th September 2010

I AM: bleary eyed but content despite the day’s disappointment

I’m in the second week of final year proper, at a small district hospital in Surrey. It’s 9.53pm, and I would gladly have been asleep an hour ago. I feel very old and tired! It turns out that, young and fit (ish) or not, working full time takes rather a lot of getting used to. Admittedly, it is working full time in the sense that i’m on my feet and busy all day, and there are days when ‘all day’ means literally that – I was in theatre from 7.45am until 7.15pm more than once last week – but still. I really wasn’t expecting to repeatedly feel so drained by teatime!

Not that i’m complaining. All the doctors are getting me involved with patients, and are as keen as I am for me to be getting on with learning the job, rather than just the medicine. Thanks to a week practicing on nearly every patient I saw, I’m now a confident and proficient cannula putter-inner and know how to get a laryngeal mask into someone’s throat to help them breathe, without too much trouble. I can hold a patient’s airway open and push air into their lungs through a reservoir bag of air, which keeps them alive until they’re connected to a ventilator. I know what order to give the drugs in when putting someone under general anaesthetic (opioid, induction agent, muscle relaxant – if you’re interested). Although I didn’t quite manage to do it myself (mainly due to lack of opportunity, I like to think), I understand the principles of endotracheal intubation. I’ve started asking people attending A&E with injuries not only what they do for a living, but whether they get paid if they can’t work (it’s important for the advice you give them and whether they’ll stick to it). I’m getting the hang of making reassuring noises to parents of children with bumped heads. I picked a child as significantly ill from the end of the corridor this afternoon (not always as easy as it sounds).

I could go on, believe it or not, but the short version is that I am finally learning how to be a doctor. And if I’ve got this far in six days, think how awesome I’ll be in ten months! And since i’m going to be so great an F1, perhaps it’s not so bad that I didn’t get an academic job. Still a bit of a bugger that I put stupendous amounts of time, effort and money into it, but you know. All good practice, I keep telling myself... I’ve also been cheered up by some lovely friends whizzing me out for pizza, so all’s well.

Now, I’m going to have the well earned good night’s sleep that comes from being physically and mentally worn out, dream contented dreams, and be ready to do it all again tomorrow. Night night!