Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Freetime

This is my first post since January.

Since then, I've gone through gen men rotation and now am finishing surgery.

Here in Australia, we work in shifts. So for surgery, we have day and afternoon shifts during weekdays. On weekends we have weekend shifts,

As day interns, we attached to units. Last time, I did colorectal for 4 weeks which is basically what every intern is entitled to. So day job involves doin ward round(s) ( note the (s) as certain units have more than one ward round depending invariably whether the unit consultant is overly enthusiastic( or unmarried)

So apart from ward rounds, there are referrals, investigations, discharges and etc. And not to forget, we have to be there on time to prepare the logistics for ward round( in another unglorified word, chasing bloods and getting all the medical histories together)

Now, on the other side of the day, there is evening interns. We usually start at 200 pm but as the day interns finish at 400 pm we have 2 hours of overlapping shifts supposedly for handover. But handovers are just a 2-minute affair.

Now by time evening interns start, 99% of important tasks are all done and our job's just basically filling in the cracks ( jelcos aka iv cannula, fluid order, drug charts etc) we sometimes are faced with some medical issues that need fixing e.g fever, hypertension, pain management, post op poor urine output) .

So most of our times are spent the best way possible as any keen interns would do. Reading voluminous medical journals, keeping ourselves up to date with current managemet guidelines, recapping materials learnt in med school.

Well, that is of course a lie.

In reality we ( ehem ehem more like I) enjoy ourselves in residents block, cruising internet, facebooking hoping no one would page us.

Who said being a doctor is hard? ;)

So much free time....

Which explains this post