The job I do?

I was walking up and down the wards today, to Richmond then up to Finbar and St Luke looking for my senior friend, then went down back to Richmond to look for the patient I met last week and do some follow-ups, then up again to Finbar after Ailani texted me to join her learning some bedside devices and procedures with the kind helpful senior. Fawaz came a bit later on with Khalid and we met downstairs in front of Adams McConnell. We bleeped our NEW intern using the bleeping phone just outside the ward and few minutes later she strangely passed beside us, went in the ward and called us from the phone at the nurses station in the ward. Funny. But I could accept the fact that she was in a hurry that she didn’t realized we were the ones who called.

So there’s been a change for the intern for every team, my former just swapped with Yanie’s team, and hers went to mine. It doesn’t make any difference though as this is the final week of us allocated to the team, there’ll be a major team reshuffling next week and everyone’s gonna have a new team. I don’t know whom I’d end up teaming with, I’m just too comfortable working with Fawaz and Jonathan, new teammates meaning new introduction from scratch provided it’s someone I know before. And I’m too tired for that. OK I know I cannot be like that, I’m into a profession that needs me to meet new people every frigging day of my life.

So I was thinking of that while walking up and down the wards today, being in the clinical years made me realized that there’s a HUGE challenge of one being a doctor. This morning I was with Ailani and the senior friend when she showed us how to put an intravenous cannula to a patient. Later on she administered some amounts of liquid drug, to be specific it was a bottle of immunoglobulin for that patient, such a simple procedure with the infusion pump made administering work easier as it controls the amount of drug infused in the patient’s vein. We then went to the nurses station and she filled in the patient’s chart that was when we heard a familiar sound of the infusion pump machine giving us an idea that something was not right. A nurse went in to see and came out with a tray in her hands, Ailani then whispered to me to look at the nurse when I realized that there was blood in the tray.

I was not trying to prove anything from there, just to give some faint idea of how a simple procedure could go wrong in the hands of an expert. If I were her, my both knees would go weak knowing the mistake I did but she calmly handled the situation as if nothing had happened. Salute ah. I wonder when would I achieve to that level, when my face would still look confident and calm eventhough it’s clear that something is not right.

Then later I went down to go in the operation theatre, it was my patient whom I’ve been doing the follow-ups who was going to have the surgery at that time. So I changed into scrubs and went to Surgical 6 and got disappointed when the anaesthetist told me that the procedure I was going to witness would be in another half an hour. I couldn’t go out to the wards with the scrubs on, the last and the only option was to stay in the changing room. So I waited for half an hour before I went in Surgical 6 back again only to found out that they still haven’t finished doing the current surgery yet. Come again in an hour maybe, said the anaesthetist guy. Nope I’m not going to, I said, in my heart only OK. I was going to have my pathology lecture in an hour.

The thing happened when I was changing back into my casual-smart hospital attire, when I heard a raised voice near the door. So it was the surgical sister or nurse, whichever they call it, and she was scolding an intern for keeping the scrubs at home, reasoning that there’s been a short of scrubs in the hospital, and she just found out that these doctors had been keeping the scrubs with them at home. And the intern with an innocent face I supposed just said yeah and promised to return back the scrubs later on.

In my mind, firstly, kedekut punye hospital, scrubs pun nak berkira. Secondly, it was a nurse scolding an intern, a qualified doctor. Huh, best tu. And what made it more interesting was the part when the intern just agreed to follow whatever the nurse said. I dunno maybe it was because she was too busy too argue or just accepting the fact that she was caught red handed. If I were her again, I dunno I might as well do the same thing, but I’ll say it’s not only me who’s doing this, and the fact that I’m keeping a set of scrubs with me is due to the short of ‘normal’ pair provided here, and I’m not wearing an ‘abnormal’ ones ok, green for top and disposable grey for pants. Macam hobbits je.


**My two favourite couple from my favourite series, Scrubs. Now U know why it is called SCRUBS don't U? It's the attire they're wearing.

A procedure went wrong, being scolded by a nurse, what more then, I’ve seen a consultant scolding an intern in front of students in the wards, and the list of torments continues. Am I fit for those? Is this the thing I’d long expect in my life?

I’m not having any second thoughts of going into this profession, maybe I’m just a bit too intimidated after witnessing some occupational stress in a life of a doctor.

Be it in any profession, there must be some stress counted in, so one just cannot run from it, prepare oneself, pray hard, with some smart planning, face them all…


**The army I'm graduating with. That was when we attended the compulsory BTN by MARA. Who'd thought I would wear that full school uniform back again? Cap 'Canggih' tu...