Luck of the Irish

Hi,

So much time between posts - time is flying at the moment! So much for my decision to do little and often, I will just have to work with what I can do I guess!

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic, some F1s were off on holiday/sick and I had to cover for them. Really not an ideal system as I already spend the day working, so I am not sure how I am meant to do two jobs at once! Fortunately I just about survived that staying a bit late and getting others to help out. As I said before, having helpful colleges makes so much difference! This week just gone I have been on call, and it is absurdly busy. The on call team consists of - F1 (me), SHO (few years more experience) Registrar (surgeon) and consultant (on for whole week, 24/7, but somehow at home all week at the same time). These 4 people (realistically two, as the consultant is at home waiting for some kind of emergency he will need to do, and the registrar in theatre doing the operations) have to see all new people who come in under surgery for that week. The start of the week was really good, as we started with no patients, as the team on call last week had taken those who had come in under their care for their normal day-to-day work. I got to spend the the first few days clerking in new patients, working out management plans and diagnoses- all very interesting and the side of medicine that I think I enjoy the most. As the week progressed, however, we ended up with dozens of patients under our care; the SHO was having to clerk in all the new patients on her own. This is any patient referred to the surgical team at all, from patients coming in through A&E with appendicitis, to patients who GPs send in due to problems they have presented with, and referrals from district nurses. Could be 10-20 people a day. I couldn't help her with this, as I was trying to sort out all of the patients who we had admitted on the ward, with all of their various problems. Very hectic, and I am glad it is over and I can go back to my day job next week.

The highlight of the last week was the mess social. The mess presidents organised for us to go to laserquest, which I won convincingly. Success! There were also a number of other bonuses over the last few weeks, including the hand over I got from the night team when I was on call which stated, in all serious "The patient was Irish, but denied any excessive alcohol intake". Sadly for the stereotype police, he had alcohol induced acute pancreatitis...