the tale of a tiger who wish to repent

Hye. it had been almost six months I left my blog untouched. 
work had been hectic and tiring. not just physically, but mentally as well.

you see, when you are a house officer, you just do what you are told to do.
but as a responsible medical officer in a surgical department, you need to:
1. re-clerk a patient's history
2. examine patient
3. think of a plan before patient is seen by a surgeon
4. guess whether a patient need a surgery or not (decision of operation can only be made by a surgeon, but you need to know what type of pt that need to be operated now, urgently, emergency or elective, or even may not need operation at all.
5. prepare patient for procedures or operation (ensure blood is taken, imaging etc)
6. do procedures (chest tube, pleural tapping, peritoneal tapping, central line insertions, intubating, cystofix, change ETT, .........)
7. teach houseman (sometimes u even had to teach them the most basic thing, but first posters sometimes had to be taught from A to Z).
8. when a patient collapse, you had to act as a team leader and conduct the resuscitation.
9. see patient in clinic and discuss with  either surgeon, radiologist or even pathologist regarding your patient (today one radiologist asked me to sit next to her and I am amazed of how humble she was when we discuss about a patient. she definitely had changed my previous perception of her!)
10. assist specialist operating. when I was a houseman I don't have any idea what my specialist is doing. Now I need to know the steps, the anatomy, instruments, close wounds and write the operation findings and steps. can I just go back into being a HO and just retract the wound, please?
11. refer cases. some people may scold you when you refer a case, but i hold on to what my boss said "some people may scold u but at least you do what your specialist asked you to do or what you think can help the patient" and "if you did not know how to manage, just refer!"

and many more...

truthfully, I still need to learn a lot.
sometimes i feel inadequate when i can't make a decision like my boss did. 
but then again, they are a specialist with lots of experience. 
their amazing skills makes me inferior.
and though I did not want to be a surgeon, i did feel comfortable in this department.
though my boss keep on asking me why I did not want to be a surgeon, and my answer is always the same "it is too difficult and the scope are too wide, la boss. I don't think I can be a surgeon"

Honestly, I am not a good doctor.
I pray every single morning that I won't scold houseman so much. 
I used to hate MO who are so damn impatient and always raise their voices. 
but it seems that I am becoming one of them too *sigh*
I even tear up a piece of paper and criticize my housemans. 
once, one houseman walk slowly in front of me like I am a tiger and I said to him "I know that I am so scary but I didn't eat human, OK?". then both of us laugh but he laugh so cowardly and said that I am indeed a scary MO.
oh my. what had I become?

my boss said that we were trained that way, and it is not our fault  to be like that.
I keep on telling myself that if I did not scold my HO they will not learn and thus will do a bad thing to our patients. but not all of them are bad, ok? some are reliable and may even tell me if I am wrong.

I may not be a good teacher. I may yell, scold and condemn HO. I know that I was once a HO too so I definitely know how they feel when they were scolded.

so to all housemans out there, forgive me for being impatient. forgive me for shouting at you in front of patients. forgive me for being so damn agitated.

we work for the sake of our patient. so let's strive to do more, okay?

p.s. I am leaving surgical department soon. finally I am free from my one year bond (which is exactly one year and 4months). Yay ! \(^o^)/

Hopefully I can pursue my dream at a new place and new environment. I am looking forward to a less stressful place so that I can be a better person and more skilled in my favorite department (which is definitely not surgical. I wonder how can someone be a surgeon. so many anatomies. so many regions. so many skills. wow. definitely not for me)

you can see that I have lot's of respect to surgeons, eyh?
yup, salute to surgeons. their work are simply amazing.

One day a patient was screaming, rolling on bed, that she even need a PCA fentanyl. The next day after a successful operation, she smiled happily and even request to go home!

A near death bleeding patient survived after a lengthy operation.

A patient who had underwent 4 major operations and was in ICU for many months, makes me shocked when he speaks and he can even walk home. (even  the GA MOs were shocked when I told them about the patient's progress!)

My uncle who was intubated due to respiratory distress, noted had a perforated diverticulum, operated, complicated with a wound breakdown, suffered a stroke as a post operation complication, is now working again and able to support his family.

Lots of cancer patients live like normal person after operation and chemotherapy.

A patient with sepsis so bad and she was so weak that we had inform D.I.L (death in line) to her family, is now pulling my bag when I was examining the patient next to her and showing me her black teeth and blabbing happily  (she is a psychiatric patient).

Those are only some of amazing things I have seen personally in this department.
Luckily, no  one who we said might be dying but somehow had survived, did not sue us.
ahaks.

I love my job. as crazy hectic depressing tiring as it is, this is my job, and I enjoy doing what I did =)