New activities and developments

I have several things to share with my readers. Let me first take the opportunity to thank each and every one of you who is reading my blogs. It is a shame, though, that my write-ups are not interesting or engaging enough for you all to post a few lines in the comments section and interact with me! My humble request to you to please join me in the conversation!

First of all, in addition to exploring Blackpool town from with-out, I am also exploring it from with-in, This means understanding its residents and its way of functioning. I have already detailed some of these things in an earlier post on my other blog, but I wish to say here that the more I discover, I feel as if I have only peeled a layer, and more lies under it. Blackpool Town Centre is one example. It is so amazing. The only other area of Blackpool that rivals it in joie-de-vivre is the sea-face. Both the town centre and the sea face thrum with activity. There are shops, entertainment centres, restaurants and bars, casinos, and a few large malls too. On the sea-front, there are bigger entertainment centres such as Sea Life. I am just doing window shopping for now, but I am sure to do all the things tourists to this town do. One way or the other, I intend to see and to show what the town is all about.

The Hospital is really big! I used to think that it might be big, but not as big as, say, the KEM hospital in Mumbai. Well, KEM is certainly bigger in terms of the bed strength, but this one is big in size for sure! It has only 800 beds, give or take, certainly not the 1300+ beds that KEM has, but it compensates for this in terms of the excellent services it provides. Our cardiac centre is Level 4, which means it does everything the best of the best cardiac centers do anywhere in the world. The long hospital corridors are really long! It takes over a minute to reach the other end from one side. The architecture of the hospital is such that sometimes things do get confusing. However, the signage is clear enough, and there are helpers at all places, who will often guide patients accurately. They even have a separate May I Help You counter in the hospital, and a few of them are ever present in the main lobby of the hospital.

Here is the main lobby, and those three people are the hospital's guide volunteers

The main lobby of the hospital

Let me now turn to some of the developments in my own life. I am still waiting to be on the payroll, as my occupational health department "clearance" is not yet due. However, the good news is that in consultation with the recruitment department of our hospital, my line manager, also the Head of the Department of Paediatrics and Family Division has agreed to start my employment from the next month, which is about 3 days away. I would therefore expect my first salary to arrive just before Christmas. 

Secondly, I am due for a 2-day induction course on the 7th of the next month. As part of the induction, or rather, in preparation for it, I was to complete several small e-courses on the ethical and confidentiality aspects of Healthcare, and I am happy to report to you that I have completed those. 

Thirdly, I have begun to exercise - since the past few days, that is. I go out on walks-jogging, and have begun to already feel better. However, my legs ARE aching, as they have been unused to running for a very long time.

Fourthly, I have registered myself for Health Care with a G.P. and was checked and evaluated by a Health Nurse, who ordered some tests on me. I got these tests done. Although my diabetes is still not normal, the tests reveal that all my other parameters are absolutely fine. 

Finally, I have joined a local gym, and plan to begin visiting it from next week onwards. 

That is basically the most recent stuff that is going on in my life. 

My home

I promised to write about the place where I am currently staying in my last but previous post, so here I am. I moved to my current lodgings on the same evening as my arrival to the UK via Manchester. I was carrying luggage worth over 45 kg, so I was quite tired and frazzled when I checked in with the switchboard operators within the Blackpool Victoria Hospital on the evening of 14th November. She asked to see my ID and when she was satisfied, she handed me a medium-sized envelope and a key. The envelope had all the necessary items for a new-comer. There were legal documents including an agreement between me and the Accommodations team of the Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Also enclosed were my new key, which opened not only my room's main door, but also the inside door to my rooms. Finally, there was a mini map of the hospital and its various departments, and a user name and password to access the entire home area's free WiFi for residents. 

It seemed like the perfect beginning for a weary, knackered but optimistic soul that I am. It was a bit difficult to find the home where I was supposed to go to live. Being a Saturday evening, there was not a soul in sight to help me. Add to that the dreariness of an English evening, rain and wind, and the amount of luggage I was hauling with me, and you might begin to understand what I felt like inside of me. Eventually, though, I found my way to the home, which was set behind the main hospital buildings. It was one among 15 two-storey buldings set near each other, and unlike many of the others, which had hospital offices on the ground floor, or even upper floors, my home (# 11) was all residential. My own flat (# 3) was on the first floor, and inside, I would occupy one of two rooms (Room # 2) - a suite of two rooms. Shared between both the residents of our flat were the common bath, toilet and kitchen. 

My rooms includes a small bed area with a study table and a wash basin with a wardrobe in one room and 4 seating chairs and a drop-leaf table with an open-access large shelf-stand on the other side. Both rooms have plenty of drawers for storage. The kitchen is well-equipped with a cooking range, an electric chimney, a large collection of modular-style cupboards and shelves, a sink, a plate tray, many plates, bowls and cutlery, a tea-pot and a micro-wave oven. The bathroom has a full bath, while the toilet is the usual Western style with no spouts or running water that Indians generally love. An ironing board and an iron are present in the corridor that the flat has, A small refrigerator and a small freezer complete the kitchen, while a washing machine and a drying machine are located on another floor and are common to all flats. 

Arranging my things haphazardly on the first night was to be expected! Over the ensuing week, however, I began to sort out my stuff and put it properly in different areas. I am, as I write this, still not comfortable with the arrangements and am continually moving things around to suit my living style!

The rooms are cleaned every afternoon by Betty, a middle-aged lady who comes in with her equipment and cleans the common areas, removes the garbage and so on. At our request, she will supply towels, bed-sheets etc. I am not yet sure if she will clean our inside rooms or not, but so far, it looks as though she won't do it without my say-so. The accommodations manager sits in an office on the ground floor of Home 6, and it is a pleasure to interact with this person, who, sort of without any provocation, goes out of the way to help you to withstand the system and even enjoy yourself in this accommodation. Her name is Karen, and she is always positive with us.

And that brings to a close this post. I will post photos as soon as possible. Meanwhile, have fun reading this post.          

How the Department of Paediatrics is

In this post, I am going to describe whatever I have learned so far about the department of Paediatrics in Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Every day, I reach the department's doctor's room within the ward at half past eight in the morning. All the doctors who have either completed the night duty, or are coming in for the morning shift are there, along with senior staff, the ward nurse(s) and other liaising personnel. 

Our department has over half a dozen consultants. The head of the department is Dr. Peter Curtis, with whom I have been conversing all these days. The consultants do the hand-over sessions in the doctors' room, then go to the wards (either the paediatric, newborn or post-delivery) or the out-patients' department (OPD), while the residents distribute themselves according to their schedules between each of these departments. The hand-over (where the night doctors discuss the cases and how they managed them during their shift) takes about 15-30 minutes. All patient data is documented on A4 sheets, which everyone gets a copy of, while the "incoming" doctors note down the things they need to do or follow-up on. The outgoing residents also hand over their "bleepers" (pagers - yes, they still use them here) to the incoming ones. The atmosphere is very informal and congenial, and everyone addresses each other by their first (or whatever names they would like to be addressed with) names. Some even continue to eat their breakfasts from their boxes, or sip their tea or coffee while the hand-over is taking place!

After the hand-over, I have generally gone to the OPD, where I join one of the consultants or the staff to observe while they see patients who are there by prior appointment. These sessions are very educative, as I get the chance to see how the consultants communicate with the patients and their care-takers (usually parents). The OPD nurse usually brings a cup of tea or coffee for both, the consultant and me, but usually after the initial rush of patients is over. Patients are quite happy to be in the OPD as it has a very colourful look, with hundreds of toys, books and activity stations both in the waiting area as well as inside the rooms. My previous post would give you a glimpse of the way the OPD looks. 

I have yet to see the functioning of the wards and the high-risk areas, but all in all, the work here is very systematic. Consultants must, after they have finished seeing the patients in the OPD, use a dictaphone to electronically write up letters to the G.P. who has sent each patient. The secretary would type out letters afterwards and send them to the respective general practitioner. 

Every Wednesday afternoon, there are grand rounds in the education department of the hospital, where all the staff and residents meet to discuss patients of the past week that went by. In addition to these, there are other teaching and learning activities which are usually going on here and there, but I have yet to understand all these things fully. 

All in all, I am waiting to be cleared by the health department of the hospital (the so-called Occupational Health Department) to begin working with patients. This may take a while yet, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that it happens sooner than later. 

Just a quick post

... to let you know of a new, UK related post by me on my other blog, Seriously Joking. This post explores some of the things I have seen and experienced in this new place of stay and work that challenged me and my beliefs:

Click this to read: http://www.drtahersworld.com/2015/11/a-week-past-in-uk-interesting-tid-bits.html

Thank you for visiting.

Sharing some photos of my first week in Blackpool

This post is all about telling a photo-story and I am going to place all the good photos of Blackpool, its hospital, its Town center, its beach and sea-side piers, and whatever else I have had the pleasure of visiting, observing and recording on my cell-phone camera, which, by the way, is one of the better mobile cameras available (I have a One Plus Two cell phone).

Evening time view of the Emergency department of Blackpool Victoria Hosp

Newly purchased public buses of Blackpool Transport with free WiFi inside

Meadows around Blackpool

Spanish cultural centre in Preston

Wish they had such a column in all Indian newspapers!

Nurses' station in Paediatric OPD

Games and TV station in OPD

Activity centre in the Paeds OPD - find gold coins!

Another activity centre in the OPD

Sensory stimulation centre in the OPD

Long ground floor corridor in the BVH

Caring for one's pets - an example

No colours are disallowed on the hair

Blackpool Tower building

Selfie for posterity

Trams on the promenade

Commercial area at the Blackpool Town centre

An example of a pre-packaged meal: many cuisines are available to try 

Slow and steady ... Monday: Manchester

It has been over 4 days since I landed in the UK. I have to complete many formalities before I can officially join and start earning a salary. The first one was to visit my department, meet the head, Dr. Peter Curtis, join the staff for a morning hand-over of patients in the ward, and then proceed to complete various hospital formalities. All these I did on Monday morning, before leaving for Manchester, where I had to present myself with my documents for an identity check with the General Medical Council, the licensing body for doctors. 

To go to Manchester, one goes either by taxi or by a bus to Blackpool North Railway station and catches a Manchester train from there. The ride is completed in 1 hour and 10 minutes. I arrived at my destination station (Deansgate, Manchester) at about 1 p.m. My appointment was for half-past two in the afternoon, and the GMC offices were about 10 minutes away from the station. I slipped into a cafe called Hatty's Cafe and had a sliced egg sandwich and a tea. I sat in the cafe, reading Metro, the nationwide tabloid that is distributed to all and sundry free of cost. 

My interview - actually it isn't an interview but an identity and document check - went off well. They verified all my documents, but were not so satisfied with a certificate that I had downloaded from the website of the Maharashtra Medical Council (this was the certificate of Good Standing). They told me that they would email the MMC and ask them to confirm the veracity of the certificate. I was surprised because the said certificate is always downloaded, and no original is usually provided. In any case, I rigorously followed up this issue with both, the GMC and the MMC. As I write this, I can say that the issue is nearing resolution, thanks to one Mr. Dinesh, a MMC officer, who has already replied positively to the GMC in response to the latter's inquiring e-mail.

After the id check, I went to Tesco Express - a departmental store with limited stuff - and purchased some items of snacks and otherwise. Retail is very, very competitive here in the UK. Every brand has their own loyalty cards, They issue the card on the spot, add the points of the same day's purchase, and then ask you to register online. That's pretty good, isn't it.  

After my return from Manchester, which was at around 7.30 p.m., I returned to my room, which is inside the Blackpool Victoria Hospital complex. And that is something I shall write about in my next post. My room, 

Thanks for reading. Keep following my posts, and I promise the blog will get more colourful and cheerful in the days to come. 

Arrival in the UK

The preparations to come to this country took well over 2 months. First, I had to complete my medical council registration; then, the UK visa; and finally, do shopping and accumulate stuff that one should compulsorily have with them when they wish to immigrate to the UK - but especially important stuff like utensils, a pressure cooker, clothes to ward off the cold and wet climate with, money to carry along, and a host of other stuff. 

During the past few months, I also hosted a few get-togethers; the first one was with my Nagpada friends, Drs. Muhbeen, Arif Shaikh and Ashfaq; at this get-together, which I had in the month of September, we had Raan Biryani, the favourite dish of Persian Durbar- the place we ate at. The next one was a family get-together with Murtuza's family. This was hosted by Murtuza, and was also at Persian Durbar, with all of us again having the same main dish that my friends and I had gorged on previously. 

The final big get-together was the one we organised about 3 days before my departure from India. At this meet, we invited the entire families of my dear friends - the Jolly club members, my own family and my wife's closest family members - a brother's family and a cousin sister's family (Pappu being the brother and her cousin Lovely being the sister). This get-together was organised by us at the Kolsa Mohalla jamatkhana. Will post pictures of this one day in this blog.

On the 14th morning, I finally caught a flight from Terminal 2 of the Mumbai Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport (Gate 73, Turkish Airlines) to Manchester. My flight took off at 6.50 a.m. IST. I had a layoff for about 2 1/2 hours at the airport in Istanbul, which I reached after a journey of 7 hours and where I changed planes to continue my onward journey to Manchester. This second leg of my journey took over 4.5 hours. Thus, my entire journey took over 14 hours, and I arrived in Manchester at around 3.30 p.m. GMT.

En route, Turkish Airlines served great food; during the first flight, they served a Turkish meal consisting of cheesy salted items, spinach and smoked salmon with sides of salad and a strawbetty yogurt, On the second leg, they served snacks, which were equally delicious. All in all, the flights were good. Istanbul airport is a very, very busy airport. They have so many departure gates! Mine was gate 304! The population at the airport was completely cosmopolitan. My first flight was running full. The second was nearly full, too.

On arriving at Manchester, the immigration formalities and retrieval of luggage took over an hour, I got a local train from Manchester Airport to Poulton le Fylde. My bags were really heavy and I had a tough time transferring them from the airport to the rail station, and from the station on to the train itself. However, I got an empty train and got settled in into the second compartment from the rear. Disaster struck when the announcer said that only the first three compartments of the train would travel to Blackpool, while the rear 3 were slated to be disconnected and would be going to another place - with a new locomotive engine. I managed to disembark at Preston, and boarded the front compartments with some difficulty. I reached Poulton at 6.30 p.m. Took a cab from there and arrived at Blackpool Victoria Hospital around 7:00 p.m. 

That's all for now. More in my next post. 

Background Information

Hi dear visitor! My name is Taher. I am a registered medical practitioner hailing from Mumbai, India. I completed my medical studies from my home city, and qualified as a Paediatrician in 1986. I put my skills to practice as a private practitioner in General Paediatrics and worked as a consultant for over 25 years. In April 2011, I appeared for and was selected for a job in KSA (Saudi Arabia) in an interview. I moved to KSA in November that year and worked as a specialist Paediatrician from then until the end of September 2015. The four years in a rural small hospital in KSA allowed me a lot of time to reflect, study, exercise, and so on. KSA also gave me time to clear my Membership exams for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. I completed this qualification by appearing for the final part in January 2015, and received my certificate in May.

Earlier in 2015, I was due to attempt an exit from KSA and join a medical center in UAE; however, this job did not materialize due to issues with the company and my proposed joining the job much later after the selection process was completed (which was in November 2014).Later, we learned that one of the owners of the group (which has other businesses as well in UAE) had absconded with a huge cache of money (heard variously as between 100-500 million dirhams!!)

This led me to think positively about using my newly acquired approved post-graduate certification, the MRCPCH. I therefore registered on a UK website which provides job-related linkages. One of the brokerages found me a locum registrar's job in Blackpool. I appeared for a Skype interview, and was selected straightaway! This opened my path to UK. After this, there were a number of hurdles, but all in all, I managed to surmount all of them, and finally, as I write this, I have booked my flight to Manchester for the middle of the present month. I am excited at the prospect of working in UK - a dream destination for nearly everyone, whether it is for work, or pleasure, stay, or visit.

This then, is my background. I am planning to use this blog to share my experiences, talk about life in the United Kingdom, show you places through photographs and text, and perhaps even video, and finally, to engage in a conversation with you all, so that when we finally begin to interact, we would have found friends in each other.

Do sign up for updates to the blog. Help me by choosing to click on advertisements and perhaps buy stuff or services from these excellent advertisers. Leave comments to each blog post. Ask questions. If you need information, do not hesitate to ask me a question. Share your own experiences. If you have an article or photos to share with me, do send me a request first, and I will be more than happy to share your content on my blog, giving you a chance to have your work/photos published on my blog.

Thank you for reading this post. Welcome, and do enjoy your stay with me.