Wednesday 3 August 2011

Black Wednesday

It is the day everyone in the medical world dreads, the day that all the completely fresh FY1s start work and all the other SHOs change jobs. A day of pure chaos. Black Wednesday.

Thankfully I survived, but only just.

In paeds I am unbanded, so technically should only work a 40 hr week, Monday-Friday, 8.30-16.30. Today I worked from 7.30 - 21.30.

The first hour was nothing to do with paeds, I just had some mess things to do. This was mainly mingling with the new SHOs to let them know about our event this Friday, and also finding where the secret stash of jam was as the hungry surgeons were getting cranky. Well they always seem pretty cranky, but they were even crankier than usual (if that's possible).

After that the morning was busy due to a lack of SHOs (induction for them), but not insane. I got to do a few ward referrals and I mastered my negotiation skills over imaging. I also gave my hands a work out writing in the notes. There was a paediatric crash call too, which I got to attend with the reg. I only labelled the blood bottles and wrote stuff down, but it felt pretty doctory.

About 2.30pm the secretary came onto the ward to find me. The afternoon SHO who was supposed to be on call, admitting patients from the assessment unit hadn't turned up. As the SHOs tend to have no paeds experience, when there is suitable registrar supervision it's seen as acceptable for the FY1 to cover the shift. I ended up covering the shift. It was insane.

We had 1 more crash call which took an hour. After that I clerked, examined and made management plans for 4 sick children, spoke to the registrar about them all and learnt loads. The down side to this has been that my brain feels like it's going to explode and I'm exhausted. I didn't drink or pee all day! I did do a mini-CEX though. Hurrah for getting ePortfolio bits started.

Now I'm home I just have to iron an outfit for tomorrow and then I can curl up in bed. It's mess night tomorrow and I'm already exhausted. At this rate I think I'll be out no later than 10pm tomorrow. Pathetic I know.

Dr Sunshine xXx

6 comments:

  1. Not a bad first day. It's taken me a whole year before they trust me with an SHO bleep and you waltz straight into the role on day 1!

    Pleased you enjoyed it. :)

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  2. So what happened to that SHO?

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  3. That SHO was locuming a shift elsewhere apparently and now won't take the day as unpaid leave, so I can't get paid for the extra hours... considering I'm unbanded that SUCKS.

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  4. What?? Why is s/he even allowed to do that?

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  5. I know. I am pretty annoyed... and it's so unprofessional!

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  6. Wow.sounds hectic.
    Whats an audit by the way?

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