“Did you hear about the F1 doctor who cried on the phone to HR?”

Yupp, that F1 doctor was me. Allow me to explain:

As I mentioned here, my rota has recently changed, which means that I have been working more shifts with less breaks in between them, and all annual leave has been cancelled indefinitely. Work has been draining and I have felt so so tired. As in so tired that I was struggling to sleep, because the thought of going to work the next day filled me with trepidation that kept me awake, making me even more tired at work. And the exhaustion meant I was slower at my job because it was taking me twice as long to do things, and I was constantly worried about making mistakes. It was awful.

So on Tuesday (my one day off this week), I called my hospital’s HR department (a.k.a Medical Staffing), and asked them about my annual leave requests, because they had been cancelled, yet again. I was told that they can’t give me any days off because of low staffing levels on my ward; I tried to explain that with the way the new rota has been done, the staffing levels on my ward will be low till August, so did this mean I wouldn’t be getting a proper break till then??? I wasn’t even demanding like a week off or anything like that- all I wanted was at least two days off in a row to catch up on sleep.

The lady on the phone couldn’t give me a straight answer, so I was put on hold while she went to get her supervisor, who relayed the same information back to me. By this point, I had had enough and felt so fed up with everything… so you can probably guess what happened next. (Hint: It’s in the title.)

Yupp, I started crying and I couldn’t stop- it was actually soooo embarrassing. I then went into a massive rant about how I just wanted to sleep, how exhausted I was, how I have never taken a sick day but might have to take one soon to rest, because if this continued, I would not be safe to look after patients; tired doctors make mistakes!

The lady on the phone was definitely not expecting that, and she was so apologetic after this. She said she would get back to me, and lo and behold in less than an hour she had arranged for me to have the next day off, in addition to four days off next week, as she explained they would get locums to cover my shifts (I cried some more after this).

I’m grateful to have some time off because this new COVID rota is A LOT. And I’m not the only one who thinks so- a lot of my junior doctor colleagues at my hospital are just as tired as me, and this is an issue we have been raising to the medical staffing team; I shouldn’t have to be in tears to get time off, that’s not okay.

There is to be a meeting next week to re-evaluate the rota, staffing levels and pay for junior doctors, because we’re not even getting overtime for all these extra hours and shifts we’re doing, which makes it even more rubbish. So I’m really hoping for a positive, less tiring outcome from the meeting.

I’m feeling much better now, so I will conclude with a reason to be cheerful: I learnt how to put in an ascitic drain this week, and did one by myself!!! SO MUCH FUN.