flips and turns of another turn around :)

its that time of the year again. where we move on from the comfort zone of a posting, and enter the new one with all the jetlags and hiccups of a checkpoint. All the dramas, fun and fails, are moments that for me, will stick in my mind and hence summarizes my 4 month journey.

the usuals, for every new postings, it starts with the usual jetlags of entering the new environment that usually follows by a transient adjustment disorder. especially after coming back from a long break. i wasnt that adapted to the new environment of treating adults, but i guess it will eventually come naturally on how to get use to treating people, regardless of the age. and as always, for every journey,  theres always the ups and downs that will surely make you realise that life can really go the other way around, and alongside, make you think on how to learn, from the most messed up situations. to make it short, i guess its best to go around and about the highlights of the ups and downs of the 4 months period.






so lets start somewhere thats down beneath.



as we started our tagging period, we started 3 days late from a few of first posters, who came in with quite of number of HOs that sums up the total tagging HOs to a total of 37 of us. and specifically for offtag requirements: the need to deliver 10 babies and assist in 5 caesarean sections.  and for those who just started as 1st posting, they are required to continue doing all this for 1 month, and others, only 2 weeks, provided you complete the task within the duration given. if not, you'll need to stay at the labour room until 10pm until the day you actually complete the tasks.

Doesnt seem to be that hard for me, until i actually realize, i was actually in a tight spot. having to be stationed at the ward instead of the labour room during the tagging period, makes it abit hard to go and do the deliveries of the babies as we are only allowed to go after finishing ward tasks / or after office hours.

so a little bit of introduction to the setting. the labour room has 8 rooms to deliver babies. and 2 operation theatres, of which only 1 that functions after office hours. and as of the tagging period, we are supposed to be at the labour room from 5pm to 10pm, with a little break in between. so you can imagine that after 5pm, that place is flooded with at least 38 house officers to deliver babies in addition to a few ( alot ) of midwife students who needs to conduct deliveries as part of their assessments.

provided that youre lucky, you will get the room and the patient is yours. if youre not lucky, the rooms might be 'booked' by someone, or your pregnant mother might be ' stolen ' from other people. and at other times, you waited for sooooo long to wait for the mother to deliver, and the mother end up needed to go to the operational theatre to deliver by surgical method.

as for me. my own journey starts a bit late. since my previous posting was paediatrics, i was abit slow in knowing what to do for the mothers in the labour room, and my comfort zone was with the delivered babies instead. prepping adrenalines and UAC sets seemed easier than fighting for a spot for the deliveries.

it seems i have a soft spot for babies

For most of my deliveries i had to stay up to 3 am just to get a baby delivered and then go back to work at 6.30am. usually ill end up staying till 7am the next day, if im not working on that day. while some people skips their work to go and catch all these deliveries, i do believe that all these requirements will come to you when the time comes, without the necessary hassle and stupid fights among colleagues. haha. your work is still work, you get paid for it and the responsibility as a doctor is there. but as a houseman your responsibility is towards your supervisor, logbook and tasks given. at the end of the day your sensible judgement and common sense will show others your true nature as things can get depressing and desperate at times.

And as a fallout for my so called poor judgements, instead of staying in the hospital from 630am to 1030pm for 2 weeks, my tagging period extended for 1 month for the unlucky days of empty labour rooms throughout the nights. i cant really blame that. because i dont really prefer to fight and scramble upon the room like mad peoples. A tiring one month that almost ended up with tears once i finished tagging. hahaha

the good thing of this posting in comparison to other postings : postcall breakfast :)

But on the other side of the coin, is the same fact that i entered this posting with a lot of people, of whom are going through the same things as i am. in other words, all the 30++ people were in the same stressful times together. hence it didnt seem that hard once i knew other people were struggling with the same thing. while others favoured on completing all of this requirements over their 'office hour works', some believed in the principle that we are working to function at wherever that we are stationed at, let it be in the clinic, in the wards.

Its nice to know that these sensible people still exists. Not to mention, all of us seemed to have more time to spend after hours together in comparison to all of our previous posting. sleepovers during tagging periods just to ensure we wake up at 3am to go to the labour room before starting work. and the environment of the labour room where you can do your jobs with the environment filled with colleagues everywhere. hence more time to nag and brag about all of the problems we face each day during work. haha

when you realize you can actually do sports after hours.

in addition to that, i was lucky enough to know that the surrounding peoples are reliable peoples. those whom once i only knew from whispers around, to those whom previously i worked with before. they made the unforeseen circumstances abit more predictive as most of them are seniors from other posting. Kudos to the specific someone, who made things a lot better in the rough situation, (thankyou :), a helping hand indeed.

Of course there are alot of other things that happened in between that made the journey a rocky ride. especially all the dramas toward the end of the posting. i assume history was 'almost written' ?? . But at the end of the day, i realise that a single good thing that happened seems enough to overthrow all the bad things that has happened during the 4 months in the posting.

I always tell myself, bad things will happen, but its how you manage it and see the silver lining through it that will build you for the long run. especially when other people put you in a rough situation. The take home message is to always remember, what can you do to make the situation better. If you cant do it now, then endure it for now, and make sure later in life, when you're at a point with the authority and power to make things better, you do it, or atleast you dont repeat the same mistake.

And i hope, with all this, it will, make me a better person. especially in the times of a new year, i realise it has been more than 8 months since a mere potato started the journey of a doctor. Time flies ( as well as my weight ),  and you realise, there is always something more to learn, and more chances to teach others what you have learnt.

no matter how great a day was, or how depressing or terrible a day may be,
always remember,
life goes on :)

 a little getaway at the end :)