In other news…

IT’S NEARLY CHRISTMAAAAASSS

I have burned a Sufjan Stevens Christmas shaped hole in my eardrums

Business Talk

Bit of a catch-up post here, as I sit in my on-call room during my night shift. This new haematology job is clearly very stressful.

That’s right, I’ve finished my rotation in A&E. Seen about 600-700 patients, witnessing gunshot wounds, major incident trauma teams, things I thought I’d only ever read about in textbooks, and assessing plenty of drunk/crazy/unlucky/heartbreaking (delete as appropriate) people throughout the four months.

While it’s not something I want to do as a career, it really was a great fun rotation. It was exciting, always interesting and once I got past (some of) the blinding fear of people threatening to drop dead on you, it was good fun. The nurses and doctors worked as more of a team than I’ve seen before, and the sense of camaraderie was brilliant. I ended up going on two staff nights out, and seeing consultants break dancing and nurses winning dance competitions is something I won’t soon forget.

But all things must pass. And thankfully that includes the 2 out of 3 weekends rota. That’s right ladies and gentlemen- I have a life again. I’ve moved to the regional centre for haematology (lymphoma, leukaemia and haemophilia are the patients) and I think it will be a good job. At the start it was obviously daunting, what with not knowing what the acronyms mean/where the wards with your 22 patients are/what your consultant said their name was again. But I think I’ll get there.

The main downside of the job is that unlike as a consultant in clinic, the majority of people I see aren’t the success stories of Disease-Free for ten years, it’s the heartbreaking ones who just want to get better enough to be home in time for Christmas. But in many cases that’s not feasible. So there will be a few less-than-cheery times ahead. One of the paths I’m thinking of is cancer care, so these few months will be quite useful in seeing if it’s something I’m interested in/able to deal with.

Right, I’m off to either do some work or catch some sleep. My nights so far have been surprisingly calm, so I figure make the most of any sleep opportunities while I can!

M