United Kingdom - a country under a cloud

For the last several months, all we have been hearing is bad news - bad news of the worst kind. First, there were the Manchester attacks, then the London Bridge attack, then the Grenfell Building fire, and now, an attack on London on innocent Muslims by a white man who muttered that he wanted to kill all Muslims.

Whatever is happening? I think there are rumours working overtime. Before the elections, I heard an Englishman say that the attack just before the elections at London Bridge was orchestrated by the sitting PM herself to garner more votes in the name of shock. After the elections, someone else said that the attacks were orchestrated by Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party. This confusion makes me realise that both contentions are wrong and that all these attacks are as proclaimed - either terrorist attacks or a grossly unfortunate accident (the building fire) or simply bad racism (the attack outside the mosque). 

I am certain more bad times are to follow. Economically, the UK is going through a bad patch as well. Brexit negotiations have begun today and the UK will have to give in on many issues, thanks to the lack of a clear parliamentary majority by Theresa May's Conservative (Tory) party.

Nothing much to add here. A reflection on the troublesome days is much in order.

#ManchesterAttacks

On the night of the 22nd of this month, Ariana conducted a music concert at the Manchester Arena. Everything went well until the very end. She had done an encore and had exited the stage. People  - a lot of them youngsters and even children - were beginning to leave the venue when a large explosion occurred just outside the arena near the ticketing window. Set off by a man who died in the explosion himself, and subsequently identified as Salman Abedi - a native Mancunian who acted most likely on behalf of ISIS - this explosion killed 22 people, many of them children, and caused injuries in another 59, some of them critically injured - and changed the threat perception of the UK from level 4 to level 5 (critical).

This event is now officially the most sinister terrorist attack on Manchester, the third largest city in the U.K. Unlike other major cities, Manchester is one of the most diverse cities in the U.K. with people from different parts of the world and all the various religions of the world assimilating together for the common good. To have such a dastardly attack that shook the entire country was indeed very shocking and unbelievable. 

The country is on the cusp of a general election in less than 15 days, and yet, everyone is in no mood for electioneering or campaigning at this point of time.

The city has moved on, but the event shall linger on in the minds of every person in the city, in the country and, dare I say, in the world. 

May the souls of the dead rest in peace, and may quick recovery occur among those who are still under treatment. Amen.

Nearly three months on the rota

I am quite happy to share with you the ongoing rota of a senior house officer that I am currently a part of since the beginning of February 2017. I have learned so much and am continuing to do so. Yes, it is much longer work hours, but, also, it gives me a shot at improving my clinical skills and decision making. Too, I get paid an extra amount for doing what is called duty in unsocial hours such as weekends and nights. 

The rota is quite different from week to week. On some weeks, I do just about 48 hours, whereas, on others, I do over 56 hours of work per week. In the past few weeks, I have had an off only on weekends, with long work hours on all the weekdays. On Tuesday, although I wasn't working, I travelled to Manchester to attend a study workshop on Communication skills. It was quite rewarding. 

Cooking-wise, I do get a chance to experiment on the lighter weeks. On the heavier ones, I get by with what I have in my refrigerator or eat in the hospital restaurant if that is possible. Occasionally, I have skipped meals at the end of the day because I was too tired to cook something. I then end up having tea and biscuits or just fried eggs with bread. 

On my Manchester trip, I went to the Asian foods supermarket (Worldwide Foods) and bought some stuff to have over the coming week. Not much, though, as I am preparing to go to Mumbai for vacation. However, I did parcel a lamb biryani from a Pakistani restaurant called Spicy Mint and it is located just across the road from Worldwide Foods at Rusholme (which is just over the signal from the Central Manchester Hospitals where I attended the workshop.

I also visited Chennai Dosa with the intention to take away some cooked stuff from there as well as have some south Indian delicacies. It disappointed me completely. The onion utappa that I ordered was undercooked from inside but crispy brown from the outside. I decided to just have it rather than argue over it as I had limited time at my disposal. When I tried to order a lamb biryani from there (Spicy Mint was a second option that I went to as I couldn't get the biryani at Chennai Dosa), they told me they did not have it at that point of time. 

In any case, to return to the main subject: it was a very good workshop and I met with quite a few interesting people, including some consultants from the hospital. Food at the workshop was quite basic with sandwiches, tea, coffee and orange juice. 

I returned to Blackpool by half past nine. A very exhausting day indeed. 

Medical Professionalism Matters

On the evening of the 12th of July, I had the unique opportunity to attend a workshop on the captioned topic. The venue was the Museum of Science and Industry at Deansgate, Manchester.

This was a joint programme of many organisations led by the UK's top regulating body, the General Medical Council. Other organisers included the British Medical Association, the RCGP, the RCP, and others. The thrust of this event was to interact and formulate a blueprint of what professionalism means to doctors and other healthcare workers in modern times. There were discussions related to several aspects of this; they included talking about proper communication, having compassion in care, being ethical and responsible, being concerned about self-development (professionally and otherwise), being safe and having a paramount concern for safety in healthcare, being a team-worker and being resilient. 

There was a keynote speaker, Prof. Jacky Hayden (@Hayden.Jacky), who spoke on several aspects of qualities of being a good health professional. Her talk was brief but it highlighted all the important issues and set the tone for the next programme - a series of group discussions. During these group discussions, a moderator from the GMC collected thoughts from the participants at each table on a specific aspect of the main theme. Thus, there were tables where, for example, communication was discussed; or, where the discussion related to patient safety, or, to doctors' advancement as scholars and innovators in their field. I enjoyed these group discussions tremendously. There were professionals from all walks of the medical field, right from junior doctors like me, to stalwarts like Pali Hungin, the president of the BMA, sharing ideas freely on all these topics. Each table sat for 20minutes, then we changed to another table, with another topic for brainstorming. 

Supper was served after these discussions, and this was then followed by a panel discussion where the panellists took questions sent by participants. The entire discussion was very illuminating. One of the speakers was Dr Umesh Prabhu, (@DrUmeshPrabhu), a Paediatrician from Wigan. He is a highly innovative person who has made a mark on NHS through his work related to Patient Safety in Healthcare. Do look him up on Twitter.

To read more about this event, and the issues raised therein, do visit www.gooddoctors.co.uk.

Thank you.

P.S. For non-medicos, who are not interested in this post, I apologise sincerely. 

My visit to Manchester

As I have mentioned in an earlier entry, I went to Manchester last week to join an academic course that would run for 2 days. Known as the Advanced Paediatric Life Support course, or the APLS, this course was organised by the Advanced Life Support Group with the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital and the related trust. The venue was to be their training headquarters (the ManCEL) at the West Point building on Chester Street in central Manchester. I had already booked my rail tickets to Manchester Oxford street, and my hotel bookings on booking.com at the Hotel Ibis Budget at Salford Quays in the Salford area of central Manchester. I will write a review of this hotel in a separate post or on Tripadvisor. 

The hotel

Arriving by train on Sunday evening, I got off a little previous to my stated destination (at Deansgate instead of the Oxford station), and then took a tram to the hotel area. It was a lovely final leg of the journey and I arrived at the hotel reception at a little after seven p.m. The receptionist, a Spanish woman by the name of Carmen, speaking with a Spanish accent, kindly accepted my online booking and offered me a free upgrade to a double bed room (whereas I had booked into a single bed room). I was handed over the card and shown the cafe and the password for the free WiFi and so on. I retired to my room. It was a pleasant place indeed. I have no complaints against it, as it was just GBP 31.5 per night! The room had adequate lighting, a lovely shower stall, a slightly cramped toilet, an extra bed over the double bed where one can have a third guest if needed and pretty clean furniture and stuff. 

How my room looked

In the night, I went to a local restaurant located just opposite the hotel. It is called the Shahi Masala and although it prides itself on calling it an Indian restaurant, it is owned and run by Pakistanis. I had a nahari lamb with tandoori roti - my first taste of authentic Nahari here in the UK. Meeting the floor manager and the waiters was a pleasant experience. I had mini-chats with the manager (Asif) and the waiter (Saqi) and learned that this is the usual practice in the UK. They said they knew many other places in the kingdom which were run by Pakistanis but were referred to as Indian restaurants. 

The wash basin and my own reflection in the full-length
mirror

On the next morning, I woke up early to reach the course venue which is about 2 km away from the hotel. It was an energising walk indeed, but I managed to arrive at the stroke of eight, and was guided to the 8th floor, where the course would be held. There was an initial period of half an hour where they basically allowed the candidates to come in and register, meet each other and have tea, coffee, and so on. WE got underway at half past eight, and the long day of training, interspersed with 2 tea breaks and a lunch break finally got over at half past six in the evening!

I met with and befriended quite a few people, most from Manchester, but quite a few from other places as well, such as Liverpool, Birmingham, North East England, and so on. I was able to befriend some Indian doctors as well, and would like to mention Drs. Rashmi Mehta and Swaroop Roy specially, since they are both, like me, Mumbaikars. However, they have been here in the UK since many years, and it was easy to see how they are already well-assimilated in the system.

In the evening, after my return, I went for a walk, and then to the same restaurant as I had been to the previous night, where I ate a lovely dinner of a gravy chicken vindaloo with pulao.

The next day at the course was as tiring as the first day, but it seemed that I was getting the hang of it and was able to learn more efficiently. The lunch mostly consisted of sandwiches, but there were plenty of them to go around. They did have biscuits with tea, and juices and such, so they looked after us pretty well. At the end of the day, after waiting for nearly an hour and a half, the trainers came out and told us our results. I had passed their evaluation!

One of my new friends, one Dr. Venkat, who is a consultant at a different location in the UK (Huddersfield) gave me a lift in his car, first to the hotel, to pick up my bag, and then, all the way to Salford Crescent railway station, from where I would be able to catch my return train to Blackpool.

In the event, I returned to Blackpool at half past eight, and I went straight to Mr. Basrai's World Foods restaurant, where I had a filling buffet dinner before returning to my room at the hospital. A review of this excellent eating out place is available on my profile at Tripadvisor. I will add the link once it is published there.

Thank you for reading this entry. I really enjoyed writing it. If you like it, won't you let me know, please, through the comments section below. 

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.