'The more you put in, the more you get out of it. You don't even have to know a lot, you just have to be keen!' One of the consultant said this to me one day. I reflected upon it. Did I not seem very keen? Did I give him the impression that I was bored?
This is the most difficult thing about studying medicine. It isn't
the vast medical knowledge that we are expected to learn. It isn't even the
extraordinary hard work that we have to put in. It is having to appear
enthusiastic, keen, energetic all the time.
You'd realise the fact on the very first day you set foot into the
hospital in the third year. Hospitals are very busy and unfriendly places.
Doctors and nurses have 1001 things to do already and routine is very important
to be efficient, so more can be done in a shorter span of time. Doctors and
nurses tend to cope with the madness of hospital chaos by sharing a
strange a camaraderie. Because we don't work within the circle, medical students are not included
in.
I suppose I am awkward compared to my fellow friends because I
like to work. I love being in hospital, I like helping doctors and nurses, I
intrigued that I learn new things everyday. I hate laziness and I cannot stand
being idle.
In my third year, on our very first placement, one of the consultant tried to get me doing jobs
as part of the medical team, and that was such a rare thing.
However, even for me, I feel that sometimes I just have not any
energy left to pull up that keen face that we are suppose to show all the
time.
This was written when I was nearing the end of my fifth year. I suppose the exhaustion had started to kick in, exhaustion of being a student. I was the model student. I wanted to make good impression of every senior person I met, and that took quite a bit of effort.
This was written when I was nearing the end of my fifth year. I suppose the exhaustion had started to kick in, exhaustion of being a student. I was the model student. I wanted to make good impression of every senior person I met, and that took quite a bit of effort.
1. Staff nurse - don't be angry if i don't entertain your request
stat. because I have more urgent things to do first.
2. Patients - i am not a mi-si. please don't ask anything about
toileting, linen, spillage - i haven't a clue.
3. Relatives - talking to mi-si is so much
better than talking to me - they know useful things like where is the parking, etc. i'm only a houseplant.
4.
This was written two months into my housemanship training, at the time working in excess of 100 hours a week, mainly due to my inexperience of prioritising tasks and trying to please all the mi-si and patients who also called me mi-si. I used to think they call me mi-si because I did not appear confident (and I was probably right), hence the use of 'I' in small letters 'i'. Clearly I had more to say in this piece but now I cannot remember who else I have had resentment towards.
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