Confessions of a House Officer #4 - Day 13 of life

I hate my job.

I hate my life.

I can’t decide which of them I hate more.

So, I started to hate my job on day 13.

WOW! That is quite early to start with.

I hate having no time to eat, no time to breathe.

I hate having to generalised breakfast, lunch and dinner into ONE meal.

I hate losing the luxury of sleeping.

I hate working hard, yet NOT appreciated.

I hate having sore legs and the wrong footwear.

I hate not having time to shop for new shoes (despite having sore feet for weeks). no time to send my laundry (what more doing it), etc.

I hate it when unnecessary procedures and test were put upon patients.

I hate it when I was asked to take a good detail history, and the next day was told that I had ‘too many information’ in the clerksheet. I thought they were relevant positives and negatives.

I hate it when my writing style was criticized.

I hate it when I had to waste my time tracing lab results.

I hate this very much.

I hate it when they didn’t have a computer system like HUKM. (oh, how I missed HUKM)

I hate it when I had to go through a whole stack of lab results and do 'office work' like finding forms, puncturing holes, filing them.

I hate forms in general.

I hate it when the ringing tone to the lab takes a long 4 minutes, and later, I was entertained by

‘please try again’.

I hate it when staff nurses refused to help doctors do ECG. What did you learn in nursing school anyway?

I hate it when the PPK disappeared at night. and when Trop T levels were needed ASAP, we had to do the PPK’s job to head to CCU to get a simple ‘special bottle’ for Trop T, go back to the ward to take blood, then send the results to the lab and get it back stat. and at the same time, we need to review the patient and get an ECG done. and later I find 7 PPK lepaking at the lab counter. At that point, I just wished to strangle either them or myself.

I hate it when the pneumonic tubes were just for display, non-functioning.

I hate it when thyroid function tests were ordered for every patient with borderline tachycardia, with no attempts to get history of hyperthyroid or hypothyroid symptoms. What difference would it make when they are euthyroid? Oh, come on, she’s having fever, of course she’s tachycardic!

I hate it when we were taught to be 'clinical' people who emphasizes on history and physical examinations, and when started working, we were taught to be 'lab' people who orders all investigations under the sun. 'Medicolegal reasons, or so, it seemed'...

I hate it when the beds in the hospital are not adjustable. How am i suppose to check for JVP or prop up breatheless patients?

I hate it when all the SPO2 machines in the wards are not in good condition, and when I bring it up to the KJ, I was told that ‘terpaksalah’....

I hate it when I want to elevate a patient’s upper limb, I can’t find a simple triangular bandage in the whole ward. And the reason the staff nurse gave was ‘sini bukan orthopeadic’… oh, come on, even a first aid kit has a triangular bandage!!

I hate it when I take 1.5minutes to take blood, and double the time to find the syringes, and triple the time to label them and fill up forms.

I hate it when I requested for a chest x-ray to look for cardiomegaly, clearly fill up that request form, and the radiographer did a AP view film.

I hate it when i weren’t allowed too many opinions.

I hate it when my attempts to be holistic to the patient was rejected.

I hate it when different specialists/MOs have different opinions. It can be very confusing.

I hate it when I was not allowed to offer pain relief to my patients.

I hate it when staff nurses report everything to me, and I find myself doing someone else’s job, while mine was not settled yet.

2 days later, I learnt that it was called 'taggers kena bullied'.

I hate it when my superiors are serious people who enjoy sarcasm, and lacked sense of humour.

I hate it when I learnt that we should never go against our superiors.

I hate it when my seniors advises us to just do our job and pretend to be dumb.

I hate it when life becomes a routine.

I hate it when life becomes demotivating.

I hate it when people around me are no longer inspiring.

I’m tired.

So very tired.

So tired, i think i forgotten how to smile again.

I think I have depleted positivity.