Glorified sewing...

Currently, my job involves rotating between the ward, clinic and theatre. I detest ward work. Whenever i'm on the wards my stress levels go up.

The first weekend i was on, i didn't have time to eat anything for the whole day until 6pm. Last saturday i ended up working 18 hours straight because one of my patients decided to get really sick just as i was supposed to go home.

Besides that, I was called to manage a chest pain in a patient with a Do Not Resuscitate order whose daughter was advised by the nurse that taking blood for cardiac enzymes, which could potentially save her life, is painful and therefore uncomfortable for the patient. The daughter then decided that she'd rather let her mother die from not taking a blood test after going through a painful total hip replacement surgery.

Ward work is full of nonsense such as the above.

That's why i'm so grateful that this week, i can spend my days in theatre. I don't have to talk to the patients if i don't want to. I don't have to deal with them awake for more than 5 minutes at a go. There are no nurses hassling me to get discharge paperwork sorted. All i have to do is stand there and hold retractors, cut, and suture. And i love suturing.

Thankfully my registrars are pretty keen to let me do the work, and they are very encouraging as well. Ah... if i continue to get bathed in praises, i might just end up choosing this career path. But the lifestyle and expected sacrifice sucks too much for me to commit fully.

Working life is so much better than being a student. Whoever said that student years are the best days of one's life has got it so wrong.