UK Life, Two years on.

I completed two years of my work/stay in the UK on the 16th of November last year. Nearly two more months have elapsed. It is time to take stock of where I am, what I am doing, and what my future plans will likely be.

Let me begin with the good news. I am moving on to become a full registrar at Blackpool from coming March. The progress my consultants have seen in me and my work have finally convinced them that I am safe to be a full-time registrar and manage the department on my own. Thus, instead of working 40 hours per week, I will be on the full rota. This will mean that my locuming days will probably get reduced drastically. However, it will also mean that I WON'T need to work elsewhere, as my emergency hours work will get me extra income from within my own trust. 

This has been a very satisfying bit of news. I have the most extensive experience as a Paediatrician - even more in the number of years I have worked as a children's doctor than most of the consultants I am working under. However, thanks to my complete inexperience with the working requirements of the NHS, I was unable to inspire, so far, the confidence that I can manage patients on my own - until now. Come March, things will change, I hope.

How has life been? I could have had better life had I seized all the opportunities at my disposal and used them optimally. However, to be fair, I have tried to live a balanced life; this has meant that while I have worked very hard to earn the maximum possible money and experience, I have also enjoyed on those weekends when I haven't worked but roamed around the countryside, or within Blackpool, or even visited more distant landmarks within the country. The farthest I have ever been on my own is the Peak District National Park, the nearest, the Marton Mere Nature Reserve. I have undertaken many different railway-bus-car-on-foot journeys, some of which are definitely worth repeating.

I have taken up new hobbies such as learning to play the keyboard and learning how to colour pictures with a pencil colour set. I have persisted with my old hobbies such as cooking, travelling, birding and bird photography and a bit of writing and a lot of reading. 

The arrival of Sky TV/Telephone and Network changed a lot in my life. I now record a lot of programs, look up things I have missed and catch up with those, rewatch a few programs that I recorded earlier, and so on. I also purchased the mid-range New Amazon Echo, and with it, I am now able to listen to old, golden songs from the super singing sensations of the yesteryears, such as Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshikar, Asha Bhosale, and many others. 

In the UK, I have also made a lot of new friends. More about this in my next post. 

Thanks for reading. 

Dr Taher