Monday, January 15, 2007

After A Week in Medical Receiving

*phew

It was a busy bee week. I would like to pen down some of my thoughts. Be warned! Some people might get offended after reading this, but hey, these are my thoughts afterall!

1. Why did the smarty pants A & E doctor wrote, "Patient must receive warfarin dose tonight," although the patient's INR was a blooming 7.2?!

2. Spent about 25 quids on taxi fare for the whole week. It wasn't like I wanted to take a cab home, but my shift ended at midnight everyday. By the time I actually walked out of the ward, it was about 12.30am....and there wasn't any trains available at that time. Well, there was a few bus services available, but I just couldn't be asked to walk all the way to the Central St just to catch one.

3. hmm....25 pounds...I could probably get 2 nice blouses with that amount of money. Looks like I have to eat grass for the next couple of weeks.

4. I hate patients who think I am judging them. Just because I asked him if were a smoker, he became angry and said back to me, "Why are you doctors always asking this question?" err...duh.... because it gives us an idea of how good your lungs are and for us to identify any risk factos. This eejit patient added, "So what if I am smoking, you start talking bad about me and saying it is bad for health. It is not like you folks do not smoke anyway." Err...duh...doctors are human too...and yes, there are doctors who smoke. But look, nobody is judging you....but if you actually are taking the effort to take care of yourself, why the hell are you smoking?? Since you were young, you have been bothered with terrible asthma...and guess what? You still decided to smoke...it is not surprising that you ended up here in the hospital, hardly able to get a single breath! sheesh. Stop complaining that our treatment is not working. In the first place, you are not helping yourself.

5. I can't get my head around why certain patients go to the A&E complaining of A, B and C.... and after being told that they need to be admitted, they decided that they want to self-discharge themselves? I know nobody likes hospital. But when you step into the hospital, it means that you are wanting to find out the root of the problem, you want to get treated, and you want to get better. So why do these ppl want to self-discharge?!! You are wasting everybody's time and effort.

6. It was a rought night for my SHO. Alot of things that happened could have been avoided. She was really pissed off and busy Unfortunately. I needed to ask her about a patient, who was running fast AF. So I said, "Sorry, I know you are very rushed off your feet, but can I ask for your opinion, pls?" She looked at me and said, "Huh! There is no point in saying that." ......*ouch She has every right to be pissed off that day...but it would be nice if she could be abit more polite.

7. Is it just a coincidence, or do patients get themselves into trouble just minutes or even seconds before I go home? For example, the time is about 2 minutes to midnight, and a nurse comes along and tell me, Mr. X is having terrible chest pain, or Mrs. Y is dropping her saturations, or (this is SO typical) Mr. Z has just pulled out his venflon?! Arrghh...it really gets on my nerves when such things happen. It is like these patients just want to make me stay in the hospital. And technically, I am still working, and I would not pass this job over to the next person taking over my shift. So....after reviewing the patient, it would be way pass my time to go home. sigh.

8. Oh...I also do not fancy nurses telling me, "This patient has just spiked a temperature of 37.9. You NEED to do blood cultures." Now, let me see....are they actually instructing me to do a blood culture?? Well, I do not want to sound like I am such a 'big' person, but I think I should be the one deciding whether or not a patient gets a blood culture done.

......so much to whine about.

I pwomise to keep my mouth zipped......for now, at least!

5 comments:

greenpea said...

i know what you mean pink pea! when small things start getting into your nerves, we know we've had enough for the night.

e.g. i just printed a discharge summary for a patient and the son ready to take him home. that was about 7PM (way past my work-hours). and at 730PM, while i was just checking some blood results, that same son said.. "come and see! there are some blood stains on the mattress. you better see you know..." i was like "holy f***!" in my heart.

15 mins later, i attended to the demanding s'porean only to find out that it was a wee laceration on the patient's leg causing the blood stain and not from his cholangitis s/p ERCP & stenting.

wasted 1/2 an hour of mine. so inconsiderate.

Anonymous said...

Point 4 was absolutely hilarious... I know I know, it is not funny when you are in that position... Well take it easy and get it off your chest and keep me amused with your medic world... :P

sl said...

hehe...yea...it is quite funny when you think about it.

Anonymous said...

hi! i came across your blog from some medical blog round page. love your site! i'm a 4th year medic in london, and really am admiring you already starting out as a doc.. aih, i'll never know how to do anything! waiting in anticipation for more interesting stories :)

Unknown said...

Hi Saw Ling, I included your post on blogrounds.

I enjoyed reading the poignant stories.