Monday 2 September 2013

My first week on call

On the 12th day on call,
The hospital sent to me:

12 thousand bleeps,
11 nurses insisting,
10 BM's a-leaping*,
9 drug charts completing,
8 NOFs a-breaking **,
7 TTOs for writing,
6 bowels delaying,
5 arterial gases,
4 calling pts,
3 stolen pens,
2 D.T's***,
And cake with a KFC!

(Numbers may be altered for comic affect...)

*BMs = blood sugars
**Neck of femur - common and bad fracture in old people.
***delirium tremens - occur when alcoholic s are withdrawing

Dr Halfadoc xx

Sunday 18 August 2013

Quotes from my first week and a bit as a junior doctor..

Quotes from my first week and a bit as a junior doctor..

Well its been an eventful and exhausting week and a bit as a "proper" junior doctor.  There's so many anecdotes and stories I could tell you about that I don't know which one to focus on, instead I thought I would share a few quotes to give you a flavour of how the week has been.  As ever please remember none of these quotes/descriptions are entirely accurate so if you think you recognise yourself or a relative, you almost certainly don't...  All of these quotes however are versions of things said to me during my first week or so of work.

Patient: You're a doctor?!? I thought you were a work experience student! (this was the response of the second patient I said "I'm one of the doctors" too, the first one simply said I looked to young to be a doctor)

Gentleman that I'm trying to put a cannula in: Don't worry, just have a try. (firstly isn't it my job to tell him not to worry - clearly need to work on calm expressions! Secondly I'd actually got it in by this point and was just sticking it down..)

Consultant: "And this is wrong.... and this is terrible....and this drug needs to be stopped...and why hasn't this been done...." "I'll forgive you this time as your new but.." - None of the aforementioned mistakes were my own management plan, they were the more senior juniors but I get it, prinicipal role of the FY1 doctor is to be the whipping boy for everyone else's errors. 

Lovely senior nurse: Did you write [plan I had scribed but at instructions of FY]?  Mr [above consultant] is on the warpath about [minor mistake by FY2 in plan] but don't worry I told him you weren't on the ward.
Be nice to the nurses and they will look after you!

Disgruntled patient: What an earth am I paying for the nhs for?!

More "senior" junior doctor friend: Do you want me to lie and say it will get better?
                 Me: Yes please!

FY2 + nurse: Halfadoc, go tell Mr Z that his investigation has been cancelled today so he has been nil by mouth for nothing.  Again, FY1 = everyones whipping boy/ person to be given the most disheartening tasks.

FY2: Make sure you test his anal tone.

Conversation overheard between FY2 and ortho surgeon: Lucky you having to keep testing Mr Y's anal tone.  FY2: Nah I'm getting the FY1 to do it haha.

Consultant grilling me: Come on, this is simple!

Younger patient who I have stayed several hours late for to try and ensure his treatment gets finally started that evening: Do you have kids? [No] Then you can't understand.

Lifesaver ward pharmacists: Did you mean to do x/y/z? [Always no].
Lifesaver ward pharmacists: Would you like to add x/y/z? [Always yes]

FY1 colleague on another awful-paedics ward: We've got to make sure we go to lunch together so its not so lonely and so we can discuss problems.
          Day 8: We finally go to lunch at same time but only because there is a compulsory lunchtime teaching.

Lovely senior nurse:  Here I baked some cake, have a piece.
I repeat: Be nice to the nurses and they will look after you!

Still, 10 days till pay day! Swings and roundabouts etc!  Hope thats given anyone considering medicine a realistic idea about the glamourous first days of being a junior doctor.  And to end on an appriopriate quote: 




Dr Halfadoc  x

Thursday 1 August 2013

First day of shadowing

So its finally here - I now have a hospital ID badge that says I am an fy1 doctor and a graduation present of a pink
Stethoscope saying Dr Halfadoc* around my neck. And yes, I feel like a massive fraud at the moment - kind of like a 14 year old playing dress up!

We've had all our induction talks - which seemed to me intent on scaring us senseless and informing us we would hate our lives for at least the first 6 weeks. I've also learnt that my first rotation orthopaedics is nicknamed awful-paedics here which sounds ... pleasant! But now for my first actual day on the wards, I ll let you know how it goes!

Dr Halfadoctor xx

*it may not say exactly that on it ;)

Thursday 2 May 2013

Half a doctor no more!

Half a doctor!! FINALS PASSED :D

Well I've just had a lovely couple of weeks holiday after some truly horrible finals (which ended with at least the positive news that I got my first choice F1 and F2 jobs) but most importantly have now found out I PASSED! I have no idea how but I don't plan on questioning it!
So I'll be back soon to catch up on actual posts but  I guess this blog will need a change in title in the very near future! I'll try and post some finals tips too from things I learnt the hard way, in the mean time here's a link back to my free revision source post which I have updated a bit more as these sites and resources definitely helped me to get through: http://halfadoctor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-best-free-medical-finals-revision.html

Much love,

Dr Halfadoctor!


Monday 1 April 2013

My scariest blonde moment yet...

Finals are this week. THIS WEEK.  With that in mind read on...

So I discovered this evening that I've had a five year blonde moment where I had no idea that the thymus and thyroid were different things... I genuinely thought that all the t-cell regulation (to do with the immune system) stuff the thymus does was just another function of the thyroid...

Massive fail. Massive massive fail. So yeah wish me luck for the next few weeks!! (Short post because clearly I have revision to be doing!)

(In my defence a quick google tells me I'm not the only person to get confused here but I'm betting the asker of the below links question wasn't taking med school finals in under 100 hrs time :/ ) http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_the_thyroid_and_the_thymus_the_same_thing

Friday 1 March 2013

Junior Doctor application screw up

Those of you who have been following the news may know that this week there's been yet another screw up with Junior doctor job applications.  Unfortunately for me, I'm now in the cohort that has been affected.  Heres a news article that summarises it all: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/27/medical-students-job-offers-exam

But basically what happened was:
This Monday: We all found out what deanery we had been allocated for our F1 and F2 jobs.   This allocation is based on our score out of 100: 50 points come from educational scores e.g. ranking within the medical school, having publications, having extra degrees etc and 50 points come from the "SJT exam" - a multi-guess "choose the most appropriate action" ethicalish type exam (its a bit of a joke of an exam anyway and I doubt it really shows who will be the better doctor but that's another issue entirely).  Anyway on Monday I got my first choice and was over the moon!  Spent quite a significant amount of time on Monday evening starting to rank my job options.

Tuesday evening (after our medical schools were shut so we couldn't even get advice):  We receive an email from FPAS (the organisation responsible for allocating our jobs) telling us that they had detected an error in the marking of the SJT and will be remarking a subset of papers (this has since been changed to EVERYONES papers) and so will have to reallocate jobs too and we are to consider Mondays allocations as no longer correct.  There wasn't actually an apology anywhere in the first email..

We've had more emails since and basically it seems like the main issue is the scanners of the electronic sheets had failed to detected rubbed out answers properly leading to some people having "too many responses" recorded for certain questions and so gaining no marks.  However there is another issue that they have not yet told us as they have admitted our marks can go up or down...Furthermore they have admitted to detecting another error in the week prior to job allocations but are claiming that was an isolated error... What a shambles!
So now with finals mere weeks away we have the stress of waiting again and then when deaneries are reallocated those at my medical school will be forced with picking actual jobs (you have to rank 100 odd actual jobs) right amongst our finals time.  Ideal!

Hope other fifth years are bearing up under the strain ok!

Halfadoc xx

 
A Wikipedia screen grab after the screwup - see second paragraph! Click on picture to see it :)
 
 



Tuesday 22 January 2013

Not my blonde moment

Not my blonde moment

Firstly I'm sorry for being v.quiet on the blog front for a long while - final year is proving to be tough: Long days on the wards, teaching in the evenings and then the feeling that every spare moment I have should be spent revising...

Still finals will be finished in 3 months time hopefully provided I don't have any retakes *Touches everything wooden in sight*; so then I will try and catch up telling you tales of my fifth year because ironically along with being one of the busiest, its been one of the most worth blogging about!

Anyway today's post is not actually my story but a close friends which I thought was too good to share...

So this happened when my friend "B" was in her 3rd year.  She was due to watch angiography for the first time (angiography involves putting a small tube into one of your blood vessels and passing it up to the heart and then adding contrast.  This allows xrays to be taken of the small vessels of the heart to see if there is any narrowing or clots.  It is usually done if the patient has had a heart attack or suspected angina.)  Because of the xrays involved, medical staff have to wear heavy protective clothing or the regular exposure they get would cause them health risks.  Medical students also have to wear this clothing if they have to be present in such procedures.

Now the problem was than B hadn't ever been shown how to put on this clothing (to be honest, its pretty self explanatory though...) and nor had she seen people wearing it before.  One of the parts of the clothing is a thyroid guard which is basically like a kind of bib as shown below.  However poor B didn't know this so just put it on how she assumed it was meant to go.... .... Still I hear VISORS are making a comeback!


Apparently the consultant cracked up every time he saw her from then on!


Halfadoc x

P.s B has made it to fifth year with the rest of us and now knows when and when not to go for the 90's raver visor look!