From where I left off I had three weeks to plan a funeral, pack up Mum's stuff and my stuff and move half way across the country to start my new job as an F1. Thanks to a lot of help from my family and Mr I did it and I threw myself into my new job with gusto which helped a lot to distract me. Now I find I'm coming to the end of my foundation years and about to uproot and move again and I can honestly say that I believe I have the best job in the world. Medicine is everything I hoped it would be and more and I truly, truly love it. It is hard work, rewarding, back breaking, exhausting, thankless, exhilarating, comical, lonely, supported, terrifying and great fun and I have made such good friends. I have been lucky enough to have stayed in the same DGH for 2 years so I know most people and how thinks work in it. I have rotated through Emergency Medicine, Diabetes and Endocrine, General Surgery, General Practice and Cardiology and I'm now in Trauma and Orthopaedics.
I've had
- on call shifts from hell where everyone tries to die at the same time in geometrically opposite ends of the hospital
- bizarre shifts where I'm bleeped because a patient is stealing other people's jumpers
- delirious shifts where we crumpled on the floor maniacally laughing at 0400 because there's nothing else to do
- winter pressures that lasted 6 months
- sole responsibility for 3.5 wards of patients and a strong desire to hurl the bleep out the window and go cry in a stock cupboard
- a posting stripped of its juniors after I left because it was so bad and poorly supervised
- a letter written into the local newspaper from a grateful patient about how pleased they were with my care
I have loved every minute of it, even the awful bits because every shift does end and I can make a difference to something, someone, somewhere and that is enough for me. At the end of every shift I go home to this little girl, who is just so happy to see me and doesn't care what I have done or not done she just wants chin rubs in this particular spot until my finger drops off, and a comfy lap to sleep on. That I can do.
Recently I completed a really long form and went for an interview which I was certain I bombed. Remarkably, I am thrilled to say I got my first choice training job. In August I will be starting back down south and a lot closer to home as an ST1 in ACCS Emergency Medicine. Things are coming up Bean! Here's hoping I have enough time to take you guys with me on the next bit of my adventures.
