I have been really busy the last five days. As I write this on a Friday evening, I have little in the way of exciting news to share, and yet, there have been things that I feel I must share with you. It is nearing two months since I arrived in the UK. The first month was a month of getting used to the cold weather here, and also awaiting my first salary. In the second month, the salary, thankfully, did arrive, and liberated me to some extent, from living in abject penury the way I was doing earlier. I have been very fortunate to befriend a few people here, such as my immediate co-registrars Dr. Yogesh Kuba, Dr. Evelyn Chia, and Dr. Letty Ene. In addition, I am on good terms with all my house officers - esp. Drs. Chidi Ogiashe, Dr. Joe Stone, Dr. Akwiya, Dr. Fatima Hayat and Dr. Yassir, among others. Among the consultants, I am still trying to find my way, as they are all extremely good teachers, but each is temperamentally a little different from the others. I have really enjoyed myself with most of them, but I feel that I do need to be a little more efficient if I have to win them over to my side.
The work has been very "different" from the way I used to work both in India and in Saudi Arabia. For one thing, Blackpool is a very busy hospital. It has over 780 beds. The Paediatric department has hundreds of out-patient visitors every month, and they are usually treated and sent back home. Only a small percent are admitted as in-patients. However, as out-patients, they stretch the resources a lot. Each patient needs to be seen by a nurse, then clerked by the house officer, then shown to the registrar or the consultant, then investigated as needed, re-evaluated by the nurses and the doctor before they go back home and so on. Each patient needs to be explained at each stage what is being done to them and then re-informed of the outcome of each of the interventions and/or the results of the blood tests or X-rays done on them. Once they have gone through all of those steps, one needs to write a prescription of the medicines they would need and then they are sent home. All this happens in an area of the ward that is known as the Children's Assessment Unit. In yet another section, the in-patients are being looked after. This is the Children's Ward and it has over 15 beds, and an Adolescent section, with over 7 beds. Next, there is a Neonatal section with a variable number of preterm and sick neonates (infants less than a month old) - usually 10-15 as well. Lastly, the House officers and sometimes the registrars have to "follow up" blood reports or other investigations done on the patients earlier that day. The list is provided to them at each 8 hourly hand over, and they must complete the pending tasks before the next handover is due.
That's not all. We have Paediatric clinics, where one registrar has to go every day to assist one of the consultants. We have a delivery suite where newborns are churned out of their mothers' wombs either naturally, or actively through a Caeserean section. And that finishes the various active areas involving paediatric department duties. When one is in the ward, it is a very busy duty, and I have frequently been unable to find any time for lunch in between. When I am in the Neonatal unit, it's the same. The only way I can feed myself is if I carry my lunch with me, and so far, I have been able to do it very rarely, as there is no time in the mornings to make myself a lunch box! Thus, quite often, I go to the hospital's own restaurant and buy stuff and eat it there before returning to the ward to continue where I left off.
In the evenings, I go to the gym or go for a walk, depending on whether my gym trainer has fixed a session with me or not. Generally, I walk to the gym which is about 1.5 km away, and return walking as well. This enables me to do the gym workouts AND walk about 3 km each day. After I return from the gym, I usually go to the Costa Coffee outlet in the hospital and have a Cappucino and sit in the lobby to read my Whatsapp messages and play a bit of my mobile phone games. By the time I return to my room, which is at about half past eight or even nine p.m., I am tired and simply heat some food for dinner and have it while watching some TV series videos or a movie on my laptop.
That sums up the things I did this week. What is planned for the weekend? Well, I would go to the gym on Saturday, and work in the ward on Sunday ... and that's where I will be ... so, if you are reading this before the weekend runs out, expect to see me on the blog only after 2-4 days at best. Thanks for reading and for your comments, which I will look forward to.
The work has been very "different" from the way I used to work both in India and in Saudi Arabia. For one thing, Blackpool is a very busy hospital. It has over 780 beds. The Paediatric department has hundreds of out-patient visitors every month, and they are usually treated and sent back home. Only a small percent are admitted as in-patients. However, as out-patients, they stretch the resources a lot. Each patient needs to be seen by a nurse, then clerked by the house officer, then shown to the registrar or the consultant, then investigated as needed, re-evaluated by the nurses and the doctor before they go back home and so on. Each patient needs to be explained at each stage what is being done to them and then re-informed of the outcome of each of the interventions and/or the results of the blood tests or X-rays done on them. Once they have gone through all of those steps, one needs to write a prescription of the medicines they would need and then they are sent home. All this happens in an area of the ward that is known as the Children's Assessment Unit. In yet another section, the in-patients are being looked after. This is the Children's Ward and it has over 15 beds, and an Adolescent section, with over 7 beds. Next, there is a Neonatal section with a variable number of preterm and sick neonates (infants less than a month old) - usually 10-15 as well. Lastly, the House officers and sometimes the registrars have to "follow up" blood reports or other investigations done on the patients earlier that day. The list is provided to them at each 8 hourly hand over, and they must complete the pending tasks before the next handover is due.
That's not all. We have Paediatric clinics, where one registrar has to go every day to assist one of the consultants. We have a delivery suite where newborns are churned out of their mothers' wombs either naturally, or actively through a Caeserean section. And that finishes the various active areas involving paediatric department duties. When one is in the ward, it is a very busy duty, and I have frequently been unable to find any time for lunch in between. When I am in the Neonatal unit, it's the same. The only way I can feed myself is if I carry my lunch with me, and so far, I have been able to do it very rarely, as there is no time in the mornings to make myself a lunch box! Thus, quite often, I go to the hospital's own restaurant and buy stuff and eat it there before returning to the ward to continue where I left off.
In the evenings, I go to the gym or go for a walk, depending on whether my gym trainer has fixed a session with me or not. Generally, I walk to the gym which is about 1.5 km away, and return walking as well. This enables me to do the gym workouts AND walk about 3 km each day. After I return from the gym, I usually go to the Costa Coffee outlet in the hospital and have a Cappucino and sit in the lobby to read my Whatsapp messages and play a bit of my mobile phone games. By the time I return to my room, which is at about half past eight or even nine p.m., I am tired and simply heat some food for dinner and have it while watching some TV series videos or a movie on my laptop.
That sums up the things I did this week. What is planned for the weekend? Well, I would go to the gym on Saturday, and work in the ward on Sunday ... and that's where I will be ... so, if you are reading this before the weekend runs out, expect to see me on the blog only after 2-4 days at best. Thanks for reading and for your comments, which I will look forward to.
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