"Life in ED" - ED meaning Emergency Dept

Life in ED is...

1. Working till u dont know when it's day or night until u walk out of the hospital to either find the sun still shining, or the stars twinkling
2. Forgetting the days of the week since weekends r no longer weekends
3. Knowing your friends in other departments are in the hospital, but so near, yet so far
4. Knowing your fellow comrades r ard, but yet feel like u're at war alone
5. Watching "live acting" so dramatic that makes u wonder why life is so unfair that Zhang Ziyi is an international star when these oscar-winning talented individuals never got noticed by Director Zhang Yi Mou
6. Calming down relatives who finds u ever too slow for them, and completely ignoring the fact that there's so many patients, and so few of us (with stethoscopes)
7. Forget abt food...the hospital food supplied to us sux
8. Full stop to family life, and needless to say, social life (pity those who r dating ED doctors)
9. Entertaining patients who complains of pain for years and suddenly woke up one morning and thought.."Hmm..maybe I shall see a doc today"
10. Seeing so many sprains and fractures from falls, accidents etc, until u can't help but wonder why people can't walk properly and why can't people drive safely
11. Entertaining patients who basically just needs to exaggerate abt their symptoms, so that they can have more attention frm their family
12. Entertaining patients who tries to find something wrong with themselves just to be admitted simply because their better half is being admitted into hospital (i.e. lonely at home)
13. Losing it when the patient comes into ED all the time complaining of the same problem again n again, but non-compliant to the meds prescribed to treat their problem
14. Listening to patient's whines abt their symptoms, and when u have a plan for them, they decide to forgo all investigations and refuse all medications (wtf do they even come in for huh?)
15. Informing educated nutcases that Panadol can be bought in supermarkets without a prescription
16. Informing educated nutcases that there is this place called a Polyclinic/GP Practice where medications can be obtained from, and where minor problems can be seen
17. Entertaining crazy people who actually comes to a non-mental hospital to tell u they r mental and ask u to refer them for admission into IMH (why didn't they go to IMH in the first place?)
18. Having patients who tell u they got diarrhoea only once, and now has resolved (what do u want me to do then?)
19. Calming down patients who went a bit hysterical, thinking they've got cancer the moment they see some blood somewhere, or have some pain somewhere
20. Calming down patients who fears needles so much that they start yelling in pain the moment something touches their skin....and that can mean even an alcohol swab

And the rubbish can go on.

Yup, one week + in ED, and I spend most of my time with the above...

Plus I'm totally drained from the mad roster hrs and early lectures. Hopefully life will get a bit better after the formal teaching sessions...at least I'll get to sleep more.

Changeover

Brand new start in a brand new area from tmr. The long-awaited department I have been dreaming abt and of course, extremely curious about - A&E.

Wonder what it'll be like. I'm just hoping that things will go smooth for me *crosses fingers*. Just had a look at my roster, and true enuff, my upcoming weekends will be burnt badly. And what's worse....I'm rostered for critical care consecutively for a few days. "Nice" -.-

Hopefully I'll have some time to share my experiences online when I get my ass there.

Will miss my old colleagues definitely, and it's really sad that I'm gonna be somewhat "isolated" from the rest of the world since I'm supposed to sleep, shit and eat only in A&E.

Another wedding

Just came back home after attending a wedding. It was a great opportunity catching up with my old time friends whom I've not met for quite some time, but I think I've become much quieter than before. Maybe it's because it's been a long while since I've last met them.

People ard me are slowly getting married, which makes me wonder when mine will be. Honestly, I do wish to settle down quickly so that I can get on with my life, so that I can put full concentration into other things.

But....oh well..*shrugs*

Feels great sitting down in front of the laptop, blogging and blasting Utada Hikaru's "Come Back to Me".

First heard this song when I was in Heeren HMV during one of my very very rare evening hangouts. I got a tad curious when I saw how engrossed Dearie was listening to some music and seemed to be enjoying it a lot. "Hmm..must be something good", I thought to myself, while I was enjoying the "Little Nyonya" main theme song on some new CD. So after he's done, I went to be a KPO and oh boy, was I impressed!

Anyway, work's been busy. Yeah yeah..nothing new. And once again, I'm fatigued from consecutive weekend duty and on calls.

Just when I thought I can happily hop into A&E, MOH barred all MOs to changeover, so I'm still currently stuck in a medical ward. Good and bad actually. Good because suddenly, I am getting worried since I'm not good at certain specialties and I really need to do some reading, plus I do love my current colleagues a lot. Bad because I still have to do medical calls. Sigh.

With the "swine flu" alert going on, rounding is becoming more and more painful with the masks. And here I am trying hard to discharge patients, there I get more patients coming in to fill up my beds. Argh! WHY?! R people still wanting to be admitted at this point of time?