hi all!
some how i cant sleep because i just finished work and with all the adrenaline rush, i think i'm still suffering from the consequences of its effect.
it was changeover last wed, which means almost all junior doctors, change to a different rotation. So, i'm on elderly medicine ward at the moment.
initially i thought, hey it wasn't that bad...the doctors are nice etc. but this week, i think i'm starting to realise that elderly med is actually really bad. it's so understaffed that it's only my F2 and I on the ward. so I have to conduct my own ward round every day. plus, my registrar doesn't seem to understand the doctors hierachy very well coz he asked me if i was a GP trainee when it clearly said on my badge that i was a F1. I think he seemed quite annoyed with me coz i'm always asking him questions and he's always very miserable.
it's so sad to see patients dying too. maybe by the end of the rotation i will get used to it but still, it's depressing. I had to talk to a patient's wife today because the patient told his wife to speak to us. She agreed with us that he was not improving and seems to be dying anytime soon and she said she doesn't know why her husband kept pestering her to speak to us.
anyway, after talking to her, she went back to see her husband briefly before leaving the ward. When she was leaving, she suddenly grabbed my hand and said, 'doctor, i know why my husband wanted me to speak to you. he knows he's dying and he wants the doctor to tell me that. now he's happy that i know'.
i don't knwo how you felt but i felt very sad at that point. even at his deathbed, he was still concerned about his wife and he wanted her to know that he was going but he couldn't bear to speak about death to her.
so that's my random update on elderly medicine. i wonder if i can get any positiveness out of this rotation?
3 comments:
Nope it doesn't get any more positive. i'm 6 weeks into elderly med. People die every week. Usually i can only shrug my shoulders and move on. Can't really get too attached all the time or else i'll need antidepressants.
Mine's understaffed too! I only have 1 SHO and 1 consultant covering my ward of 28 patients. We recently only just started to have 1 registrar here 1/3 of the week. Now both my SHO and registrar is on leave so i'm the only one on the ward -_-"
yeahhlo. i had to silently wipe away a tear when the patient was begging me to let him die. so depressing on the ward! i think elderly med is understaffed EVERYWHERE. unless i'm desperately in need of a job, i will only specialise in elderly med
Compassion and compassion... that is what it is all about in this ward. Sometimes it is the knowledge that another person care, no matter how trivial.
At this old age, some patients simply don't want the healthy to be burdened by them. That is understanding and I suppose love.
Every time we met grandma, she told us that she wanted to die but somehow, God doesn't permit! Perhaps, I should post her latest photos.
I believe this ward is very rewarding. It is probably the ultimate test of one's compassion. Like I told Steph, in her A&E, people will beg her to save their lives. Here, they beg you to let them die. Life is like this. Some ready and some not.
Be strong. I just wish that the dying knows where their souls go.
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