Dreary

Alhamdulillah I survived my first 14 hour shift on a public holiday. Salute to Malaysian colleagues who do it every day.

Working on a public holiday is the pits. Even the extra pay doesn't cut it. Almost everything runs slowly if not at all. Even the online system was down!!!! Besides ward duties I also had to run up and down taking blood, sending blood to the lab myself, begging with Radiology (they don't use phones), finding the radiographer to find out the imaging results. In Malaysia that might be the doctor's job but here we have blood nurses who take blood twice a day and assistants to do odd jobs around the ward like sending bloods and specimens to the lab. On public holidays this doesn't happen.

It's not that I'm unwilling to take the bloods, send the bloods etc..it's just so time consuming. There are far more important things that need to be done like seeing the patient who suddenly developed a whole body rash or discharging the patient who's been waiting for 8 hours to go home. Especially since I was the only doctor on to do all the jobs for more than 50 patients. I had some help in the morning but by noon the other intern's shift ended so I was left to fend for myself until 9pm.

Imagine ~50 patients and 14 hours. That's about 16.8 minutes to spend on each patient excluding the time I need to eat, pee and pray 4 prayers. Sometimes putting in a cannula or taking a blood culture aje can take 30 minutes each. Obviously it is impossible to finish all the work and be on top of things by the end of the shift; no matter how organised with time someone is.

That's why one feels really unappreciated when one gets told off by consultants for not doing whatever they wanted us to do. Tak sempatlah. We are only human and there are only 24 hours in a day.

Even at my calm pace (I always walk calmly), by 2pm I already had a throbbing headache from all the mental exercise. The headache was so bad I even had visual changes and vertigo. I took Panadol but it was only until after the shift had finished that the headache went away LOL. Tak sempat nak minum air. Bila nak kencing, tak sempat nak kencing. Sampai lupa nak kencing.

I only sat down 4 times throughout the whole shift. Alhamdulillah I had bought good shoes so my feet were not swollen by the end of the day. 

The solution is obvious. Have more doctors on. Therefore the workload will distribute evenly. Tapi sebab hospital/gomen kedekut punya pasal kan. Takmo bayar weekend rate. So they have the minimum amount of doctors on i.e. 1 of each level.

If you were sick in a hospital, would you only want 16.8 minutes (or less) spent on your care??