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. 

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. 

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.