Me is goin on holiday soon!!! Can't wait! =)

And Ortho Team ONE completely rocks bcos we have nice cons and nice regs and nice MOs and nice HOs and nice SIPs! I'm so sad I'm changing team next month =(

Maybe I won't get to buy bubble tea anymore next month =( I must have bought at least 10 cups this month...

Recently, buying bubble tea has become more of a symbolic thing. It is a sign that I have completed my morning changes, an achievement just to make me happy. Sometimes I really wonder how my performance as a HO is. Am I being a good doctor, or am I being too slack?

Since ortho is less busy than medicine, I try to know my patients well and go through the case sheets and labs to make sure we don't miss out stuff in our horribly fast ward round. Missing out stuff just happens so easily, its scary. Bcos when your seniors walk to see the next patient... you just hav to follow even though u haven't had a chance to look at the IMR or the BO chart. And when you finally have the chance to sit in front of the computer with the case sheets + temperature charts +IMR in front of you (usually at night when no one fights with you for the charts), you realize that the patient has been brewing a UTI for days and days with no antibiotics. Sometimes, the reason why the hypocount is going crazy is simply bcos his old DM meds hav been inked up wrongly, and we've just been giving him tons and tons of actrapid for nothing! Most commonly, you realize that the patient was never restarted on his aspirin even though it is post op day 10... wat if he gets a stroke? Sigh~

I really feel very bad when I see all these things... seemingly it is my job to get all these sorted out, but... somehow... sometimes I still miss stuff, even after working for 6 months. Is it bcos I don't know my patients well enough? Or bcos I dun go through the case sheets often or detailed enough? (I usually only do it when I am on call, bcos its more peaceful then and I can think... plus there is no temptation to go anywhere else or do anything else.) There is so much more that I can do for them, spend more time talking to them/the family, explaining their condition to them in greater detail... But I just don't do it. When I question myself, I can't really explain why either.

In retrospect when I put myself in the patient's shoes, I guess the doctors really don't update the families enough. But when I get called by the nurses " doctor yap my patient in wXX bed XX the daughter is here and she wants to speak to the doctor...", I automatically get a bit irritated. I guess it is bcos I want them all to come during ward rounds so the consultants can speak to them. I get irritated bcos I hate it when patients/families think we have the duty to be there to update them when they are free to appear in the hospital. I get irritated when the families throw their social issues to the doctors and expect us to handle it ie. refuse to take the mother home and wants us to apply for nursing home/comm hosp and then tell me they have no money.

Maybe I'm just spoilt, never seen the day where I have no food to eat or no place to stay or no money to spend yet.

A couple of days ago, I got whacked by an anaesthetist for not calling cardio bcos one of my 88yo female patients had new onset ST depressions and T wave inversions with NORMAL cardiac enzymes and NO symptoms. It was rather depressing, bcos I subsequently also got whacked by cardio for calling them for something they didn't deem urgent enough to see by the end of the day. I'm still wondering really hard about it... were the ECG changes really significant enough to warrant an urgent cardio referral? Sigh......

Well I'm just glad I'm taking a break away from work soon... just sit around on the beach and chill I guess =) hope I can find some nice chocolates and some nice strawberries too! =)