You might think that on your very first day there will be patients who collapse in front you and that you have to treat them and putting their lives in your hands. Or perhaps, you are imagining that you will be pushing the patients into the operating theatre like those that you always see in the TV. Well, hold your thoughts right there and let me bring you back to the Mother Earth.
Here is a brief recap on what will happen on your first day. (im not sure whether this will be the same situations in other hospitals)
By 8am, make your way to the administration office and introduce yourself as a 1st day houseman. There will be a person who is incharged of houseman and he/she will hand out endless of forms to be filled up. It will be useful to bring all the documents along (i.e bank account slip, certificates, birth certificates, MMC letter, SPA letter etc). By the time you finish this alongside with the orientation of the hospital, it will be almost midday.
Then you will be informed on which lucky posting you will start with. So, introduce yourself to the HOD as well as the Sister incharged of the respective wards. It will also be very polite to introduce yourself to the nurses, MOs and HOs of that department that you happen to bump into. I was quite lucky the fact that I was asked to start my day the next day. Hence, i had the time to unpack and complete other unfinished forms for the remaining half of the day.
Once you have officially started, the Sister or your colleagues will start to orientate on the ward, the system and the people that you need to make good friends with. (This includes the PPK, JM Nurse and sometimes including the cleaners!). You will also need to learn how to fill up the forms, where to get the equipments and the numbers to dial for tracing lab results. Then you will realise there are tonnes of forms to fill up for everything i.e ordering blood, referrals to other departments like physio/dietitian/social worker/booking ambulance, ordering radiographs prescribing medications. These are the skills that are NEVER thought in the medical school. I personally felt that all these tedious stuffs are actually time consuming. Honestly, I also did not have any clue on how to give paracetamol for the patient. Noone taught that we were supposed to write Tab PCM 1g QID in that yellow prescription sheet.
Then you might be taught on how to write your very first own history clerking and with physical examinations. I was quite relieved the fact that I was taught in a local hospital setting and hence, I was already familiar with the short forms and the styles. It made my whole adaptation process much easier compared to those who were trained overseas. I noticed that some of my colleagues who graduated from Russia for instance write in sentences instead of point forms for history taking. I always tell that those who are graduated from non-local unis might have to work 2 times harder than those trained locally.
One thing that you realise later on is that you need to be super fast with your work. I remember i used to take up to 1 hour just to complete the history and writing the physical findings on that paper and I had not even started with the management and doing procedures such as inserting branula, doing VE and taking blood. The nurses will then start to nag and you will feel even more pressured when the patient starts to complain. It was quite unfortunate that I started in the labour room which required you to complete managing a patient within an hour! So what I did was I timed myself and tried to be faster with each patient. It also helped the fact that I had a senior who kept on pressuring me to be speed up.
On the other hand, since you are a newbie, you will definitely not be incharged of complex and challenging tasks. The most that you will go on your first day is perhaps setting branula or taking blood. Be prepared to feel like shit when you cannot even get that bulging vein and you start to mess up the room with the patient's blood.
Otherwise, let me tell you this.
First impression really matters. ALWAYS respect your seniors regardless whether they are housemen, staff nurses or even JMs. Accept their criticism and be humble. Though you might be the flying colours students with a CGPA of 4.0, always instill that you know nothing and need to be guided. You might think some things are done inappropriately and you might disagree with some decisions but it is best to just be the observer for now. Do not argue with them cause once you show that negative attitude, trust me your hell starts right away.
Well, I've written quite a bunch there but those are things that are never mentioned in the thick medical textbooks. I have many more to write but it is already late and i am doing oncall tomorrow. Just pray that I have the energy to write in again soon Or else, you might need to wait months before my next entry! Until then, the photos below are taken during my winter trip to Paris last January!
The Eiffel Tower
The Lourve
The famous macarons Pierre Hermes
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