Nightmare weekend

*Warning: Pardon the vulgarities...I'm in a mood, and seriously need to vent*

My weekend on call (farking hell....I still have 12 more hours to go!!!) has been the ultimate nightmare. February is definitely the shit month for my surgical rotation, since I'm on call for so many days continuously.

I hate Surgery to begin with, and it has been so ever since my days in med school. I have NEVER had a good surgical placement, and despite wanting to give Surgery a chance, I still don't fancy it.

I can't wait for ALL my on calls for Surgery to end, and even though I know that going back to Medicine is gonna end up being insane, I rather cope with the medical insanity that the surgical insanity. In short, I just want nothing to do with Surgery for the rest of my life!

Been driven insane 2 days straight of on call (note: there's only TWO surgical people taking care of all the surgical patients in the entire hospital). Reasons...

1. Patients coming in altogether at the same time and nurses bleep u continuously to ask u to hurry up and clerk them (sometimes u wish u had 8 hands and 8 legs...)

2. Venflons! Bloods!!!! Imagine being bleeped every 10 minutes by ONE farking ward to put in a venflon for ONE patient when each time u answer the bleep, u repeat the same "I know abt the venflon" to practically every single nurse on THAT ward!

3. Need bloods done on this patient who is difficult to bleed - I went there, and can't even feel any vein or see any either...it's just dumb to stick a needle in blindly, so I told the nurses to call the anaesthetists (they're the ones with all the tools...worst case...central line), and they didn't....but bleep me endlessly to tell me that the patient needs bloods for the rest of the day (did they not understand English?!)

4. Dose warfarin NOW because nurses want to give medications NOW (how to dose warfarin when I only sent off the bloods 10 mins ago? u expect instant results? warfarin can be given even during dinner time...it's just this nurse being anal by insisting that she wanna give warfarin. sorry babe, i'm not your maid. u do it when i think it's suitable, not the other way round)

5. Bleeped by nurses informing me about amylase result of 100+ in a patient who is known to have pancreatitis with an initial amylase of 4000+ (for what?!)

6. Bleeped by nurses about patient having pain and not relieved by paracetamol, therefore needing stronger analgesia (i have no problems with that, and i'm more than pleased to give verbal orders, but for some fucking dumb reason, only some nurses can take verbal orders, and since the one who was talking to me on the phone isn't the selected "verbal order" nurse of the ward, I had to wait for her to get the "verbal order" nurse to come to the phone and having me to repeat myself all over again)

7. Review a lesion on the elbow and insisting that it MUST be seen today, if not, the nurses will force me to see it tomorrow ( so urgent meh!??!?!?! that bloody thing has been there for 1 week! surely it can wait till Monday!)

8. Change new venflon because it's there for 3 days, and insisting that it's hospital policy (MY FOOT! I'll be extremely surprised if nurses actually go and count how many days the venflon is in the hand when it's there for proper reasons like drug administering, and I'll be extremely IMPRESSED with the doctors who will (i bet u my toes that they won't even bother entertaining rubbish like this) go around the entire hospital to change new venflons (pricking patients..) every 3 days. We all have better things to do)


And the list goes on....it never ends... (imagine having to tell new patients whom u're seeing every 5 minutes "sorry, i'll be back..just going to answer my bleep"....super pissed off)

I don't know if it's just this hospital, or it's NHS as a whole, or is it the same worldwide. I'm really curious and I will find out when I start work in Sg.

Must admit that some nurses are brilliant and they've been a great help, but some.....forget it. I'm not a person who hides how I feel about things, meaning if I'm frustrated..u can tell from my voice. I don't deny that I have a low tolerance for rubbish, but seriously, who wouldn't be frustrated?


And I still have 12 more hours to go......argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!