A new jungle - O&G

I have been in O&G for more than a month and a half now. The reason that I have not written about it was because I hated it. But it has changed now and it is really out of expectation.

I hated O&G at the beginning because everyone seemed so hostile. Whenever people speak they speak to me or I speak to them, it’s as if they want to pick a fight, even with some of the fellow HOs. The atmosphere was just so hormonal and unfriendly.

But then over time I got to know my colleagues better. Few, I realized, are truly nasty from the core. But most are actually good men and kind women. They teach me and help me with lots of stuff. When I started off, I had two fellow HOs in my ward. But not long after, for 2 weeks I was the only HO in the ward. That was crazy. I couldn’t even do my labour room daycall as there was no one covering the ward.

There are four specialists in my ward. Of all the teams’ specialists, they are the most hardworking ones. They come everyday at 8am for grandround. So we have to see all the patients and sort out all the pre-round jobs before 8am, which is bloody mad. I come so early, sometimes as early as 5:30am but still never seemed to have enough time to see all the patients. But round usually finishes by 9am, which is nice. If the day is not unusually hectic, we can normally go home by 5pm.

At the beginning, I was assigned to 14 oncalls for my first month. But as more new HOs arrived, my calls had reduced to 11 per month, which was still quite a lot but bearable. Labour room is fun although it is a rough jungle and really need to learn fast – not only in terms of skills but also which midwives and registrars to look out for. Some are more likely than others to make your life hell. O&G calls are generally dreaded, but no where as bad as the medical calls. At least we can expect to sleep for an hour or two.

Now I’m coming to the second month of this posting and I’ve still have not had a day off since I started. That’s working everyday continuously for nearly two months! Exhausted… And now they tell us that we are not allowed to claim for ward cover on weekend anymore. Great.

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