The Worst Day of My Life

Houseman Survivor Guide (Monkey Edition)
I. Introduction
II. Hospital Hierarchy
III. A Typical Day
IV. Painkillers
V. Meet The F*ckers

This is going to be a long post. But I hope that for those who start reading it, please finish it.

0700Hr: I was driving along ECP, listening to the radio. Trying to catch my horoscope. Don't usually believe in those things. But today I'm on call. Boy the last one was bad. Thinking about my last call, I started having palpitations. The odds are you don't have two bad calls in a row. I consoled myself.

0730Hr: Reached my ward, it is a respiratory ward. One of the worst, one of the busiest. Most of the patients end up here after one too many sticks of cigarettes. Its too late for them, their lungs are gone. They probably know, coz none of them ever stop smoking. I was busy getting everything ready for the morning round. Putting all the case files to the correct bed and entering all the new results in the case notes for easy reference. I looked at the team list which is basically a list consisting of all the patients we must see. 35....

0800Hr: As usual, my Medical Officer came first. He is this 30ish guy who look years beyond his age. He always seemed so tired, hardly smiles. Sulking all the time. "Had your breakfast?" he asked me. I don't take breakfast, never had. "You really should you know, you never know when is the next time you can eat....." We started the round.

00845Hr: The Registrar arrived. She is a petite lady but you don't wanna mess with her. We restarted the round.

0930Hr: We were almost finished with the ward when the Consultant came. He is the head of the department. I tried to hide behind my MO and remain inconspicuous. Don't wanna get shouted at early in the morning. That would be a bad start to an on call day. We restarted the round again.

1100Hr: Finally reached the overflow wards. Things were not too bad today. Only got scolded twice for not knowing one patient well enough and not completing another's summary.

1130Hr: Ward round finally over! The sense of relief translated into a new euphoria and confidence. I had another hour left before the Journal Club starts. What should I do first??? Arrange for urgent CT scans? Call the specialist from other disciplines for the blue letter referral? Take blood? Set plugs? Do discharges? Talk to relatives? Only one hour.....

1230Hr: Journal (research papers)club started. Attendance is compulsory. Didn't get much done in that hour. Urgent stuff came first, arranged the scans. But not before getting humiliated by the radiologist downstairs. "Why do you need this to be urgent???!!" "Don't you know how to read Xray??!!!" "Who ordered the urgent scan?!!!" Wasn't me, I'm just a HO.
Couldn't really concentrate on the research paper presented. Kept getting paged by the nurses. "Dr, Bed 12 and Bed 15's family are here to see you. They gotta leave for lunch soon" "Dr, hypocount of Bed 13 is 12" "Dr, Bed 30 plug came out" "Have you done the disharge summaries? Bed 10 wants to go home now"

1340Hr: Journal club finally ended. Rushed back to the ward to speak to the family members. More pages from the nurses. They are changing shift soon and the morning shift nurses are trying to rush me to get the morning changes(orders) done.....

1600Hr: Finished most of my changes and discharges. 30 out of the 35 patients I am in charge of had bloods to be taken. 10 were discharged. Still have those god damn blood cultures.... Did I have lunch? Call starting in an hour, better go finish up and have dinner. Oh yeah, not done that summary, maybe later....

1700Hr on the dot: "HO 2 you have a new case in ward 44." Dammit, the ward HO must have left the case for me to clerk. "Saturation 85%, you better come now" No dinner.

12MN/0000Hr: Cases came one after another..... the old man with end stage renal failure, the fat man who was alcohol intoxicated, the psychotic woman brought by the police, the Samsui woman with no place to stay, the usual patients with chest pain, giddiness, dengue fever..... to name a few. I took 10 minutes to take a drink and change into hospital baju. Did I pass urine today at all? Can't remember......

0600Hr: Bad night, can't recall how many cases I saw. There were 2 collapses, both died. 4 more new cases to go...... Need to finish up and then go do my summary...... Hang in there.

0715Hr: Finished my 4 cases, no time to take blood for the last one. Need to take a shower and change into shirt and pants. Post call, no need for tie.

0800Hr: MO came. "Bad call?" Guess it showed in my face. He helped me trace the morning results already. Thank goodness.

1000Hr: Got a good scolding from the Consultant for not completing the summary. Scolded the MO as well, much to my embarrassment. "Summaries must be done by 24 hrs of patient's admission!!" "So how many in outer space today?" He meant the overflow patients.

1300Hr: Morning round ended at around 12. Again I had only an hour to do my morning changes before attending the Xray round. Attendance is compulsory. Nurses as usual pages me like mad even though they know where I am and what I'm doing. The patients or family give them shit, they give me shit.

1400Hr: Rushed down to the canteen. Ordered seafood soup. Damn. Too hot.... The pager kept going off. I should be post call and on my way home. (you get 1/2 day off the day after your call). But I haven't finish my changes. Can't wait for the soup to cool down. Ran back to the ward. No more hot soup from now on.

1630Hr: Did most of the work. Finished most of the bloods. I think.... Told one of my fellow HO to cover my ward..... "sorry man, can't take it liao". On my way to my car my MO paged me. "Where are you?" "Did you call the surgeon to come see Bed 15" "No? Why not?" I told him frankly, "I forgot." Asked if he wanted me to come back, still in the vincinity. "Never mind....."

1745Hr: Finally home..... bathed and went straight to bed. Told my mother I will not be waking up for dinner. Just too tired...... "But Ma, can you prepare some breakfast for me tomorrow?" You never know when will be the next time you can eat.....