My Last Night Shifts

It’s been a very busy two weeks.

My sister (a.k.a The Keen One a.k.a Kenny) shared my last blog post on her Instagram, and I’ve been blown away by the responses to it. So many people have reached out to show support and check in with me, and I’ve been so moved and overwhelmed by their kind words.

I don’t really share my blog with people I know in real life, as the majority of readers and followers of this blog are strangers from all over, so it’s always surreal to me when people message to tell me they’ve come across some posts. As always, I appreciate anyone for stopping by, and hello to you all!

Since my last update, my jobs have changed. I was informed by my TPD (Training Programme Director – we’re all assigned one as GP trainees) that my hospital job next year has been changed to a GP post. I was meant to be doing 4 months of Medicine for the Elderly from December to April next year, but because requirements for GP trainees mean we now have to do up to 24 months in primary care as part of GP training, that hospital job has now changed to a GP post.

So what does this mean for me? It means that after next week, I will have no more hospital jobs until I become a GP (by God’s grace!) – the only out of hours shifts as a hospital doctor I will be doing will be locum shifts if I want to, which means NO MORE NIGHT SHIFTS.

No more ward rounds, no more ward cover, and NO MORE NIGHT SHIFTS.

As you can imagine, this made my final set of nights last week fly by, because I just kept thinking, almost there…

So so grateful that the nights weren’t too stressful either – I’ve really not been enjoying being on my base ward over the last couple of weeks, so being in AMU last week was a breath of fresh air, and a reminder of how much I love my job when I get to clerk and spend time with patients, without feeling rushed to do ward jobs or being pressured to complete discharge letters. I really needed that reminder because it’s been tough.

After my final shift, the Consultant doing the post take ward as we were handing over said I’m the most cheerful post night shifts junior doctor she’s ever worked with, and that really made my day. I’m feeling more like myself at work again, so here’s hoping my final shifts on my base ward before rotating to GP in April go as smoothly.

I’ll leave you with some pictures from our GP Trainee Gala Dinner a couple of weeks ago – SO MUCH FUN!

My Last Shift As A Gastro FY2 Doctor

What a whirlwind the last couple of weeks have been! I am officially in my last week as a FY2 doctor – tomorrow is my last post-take on call shift and then I will be DONE; we thank God!

Last Tuesday was my last shift on the ward, and I’ve spent the last couple of days visiting my dear aunty Funzie for a much needed retreat – it was so much fun and I’ve come back feeling refreshed and ready to change over jobs next week… but more on my post FY2 plans later.

In the month it’s been since I last updated this blog, I started and completed my on call night shifts, and my goodness, the hectic day shifts on the ward were definitely a breeze compared to how overwhelming the nights were. 1 doctor (me), covering 10 medical wards… it was A LOT.

I’m not going to go into detail about how they went because it took me a while to recover from how awful some of the shifts were, so here’s a haiku to sum up my nights:

Never ending bleeps,

Yay for helpful registrars,

Site team are the WORST.

Yupp. And in the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Moving swiftly on, how was my last day on the Gastro ward? I started the day hoping for a calm, relaxed shift; I was only meant to be working till 3pm because of allocated self development time, so surely the ward would be fine till then, right?

Yeah… WRONG.

My last day on the Gastro ward involved a patient self discharging, then being brought back to the ward by the Police because they had tried to take their life. This same patient also snuck alcohol on the ward, which they downed with some Paracetamol and Anadin, ofcourse. They then required holding powers (a.k.a sectioning) by me because they became aggressive and tried to leave the ward; all this whilst continuously threatening to take their life. Yupp. And this was just one patient.

Also on the ward that day was a patient who had an upper GI bleed that required an urgent endoscopy, as well as other acutely unwell patients with ascites and liver cirrhosis. Basically, it was all kicking off and with the Registrar dealing with urgent referrals around the hospital, I had to manage most of this by myself, whilst also being shadowed by the new FY1 doctor, so I even had an audience watching me trying to juggle everything!

I guess I can laugh now at the irony of me having to section a patient whilst on a GASTRO rotation – I really thought I was done with Psych after the draining four months of it I had but NOPE, I had to bring back a lot of my knowledge of holding powers to be able to correctly section the patient. I was the only one on the ward who knew how to do it, so I guess that was God trying to tell me that though my experience of Psych was quite distressing at times, I really learnt a lot from it, because I was able to apply a lot of my patient management skills from there to the suicidal patient on the ward.

My last day wasn’t all doom and gloom though – I got to do my first ascitic tap! It’s funny because I’ve done quite a few ascitic drains now but never a tap, so glad I was able to do it before leaving Gastro.

Despite how busy it’s been, I’ve really enjoyed my time on Gastroenterology. I find it so so interesting and I’ve learnt so much over the last four months. I would really consider it as a speciality if I didn’t have to go through being a Medical Registrar as part of training for it. Yeah Med Reg life, especially in a district general hospital, is most definitely not for me… *shudders*

Here’s to more regular updates now that my foundation training is coming to an end and I have a new job… but more on that in my next post 😉