Change of job is possible

As my readers already know, my struggle to cope with the requirements of a registrar has been an ongoing issue. I have remained optimistic until recently, but now, it seems, that there is a distinct possibility of my having to leave my current job at Blackpool and look for a slightly less demanding job in another location within the UK. I have decided that I need to have a firm grounding into the job before I move up to being a middle-grade doctor (as I am currently). This hard decision has been the result of so many difficulties that I cannot begin to enumerate them here individually.

Part of my difficulty is my inability to understand the working of the NHS. This is a very complex healthcare system indeed. Although the basics of medical practice are not different from that which prevail all over the world, the way patients are handled and the way they move through the system is definitely way different from all that I have done before in my professional career. Add to this the fact that each consultant has a different way of working, and you will see that adjusting with each one of them can get a bit complicated. None of them are wrong, it's just that they are different. To their credit, though, I must say that they have all been very supportive and have tried their best to see me clamber up the steps and become capable of remaining where I have been.

The other difficulty is in communication. Time and again, I have stumbled there. In the UK, every word one utters is carefully weighed up and then judged on its appropriateness, accuracy and all else that words are expected to do. Several of my remarks - some to patients' carers, and some to colleagues have been hopelessly misinterpreted to mean something quite different from what they were originally intended to mean. For example, a simple suggestion to an overweight colleague to check out a certain health website was misinterpreted as an attempt to harass that person and to be personal. Another example might be an issue with a parent where I told them about the possible differential diagnoses in their child - and this was misinterpreted as "my being out to scare them with scary labels", All this is, of course, reported back to the consultants, who have taken the view that poor communication can put the institute in a poor light, and hence, it might be best for me to consider looking for a new place to work.

I am not, for a moment, thinking that changing my place of work is going to solve all my problems. Of course, that would be the wrong way to think. I am, however, going to grab the bull by its horns and make a fresh attempt to go down a rung of the work ladder and try and climb it once again. And I will definitely need all your good wishes to be able to succeed.

Thank you for reading this entry. In a way, this is the most significant blog entry I have ever made in this, or in any other blogs that I write.