ST Depression

MTAS said that the job interview lists would be online last Saturday.

I was in Africa last week, so I eventually found an internet cafe - and at the last minute they announced that details wouldn't be available until Monday. And it was only yesterday that they finally released the results of my applications for ST-3 jobs in Anaesthetics...

...Computer says no.

Bugger.

Lots of my friends (some really good doctors) haven't been called for any interviews either.

Oh well - Round 2 it is then.

New

Okay, so I know I shouldn't admit to being quite so chuffed... but I got to hold a baby this evening.

Normally in the Maternity Unit, I don't have anything to do with the neonate (unless there's a problem and the Paediatrician needs a hand) - I look after the mother, the midwife or partner usually take turns holding the newborn if Mum's not in the mood.

But last night, the Mum was tired & no-one else was around, so I gave her a break and held the baby for 20 minutes (until I was called away).

I don't think I've ever held a baby for anywhere near that long before.

(I've never dropped one or anything - I know they're heavy, but I'm not clumsy - I just haven't had the chance before; none of my close friends have squeezed any sprogs out yet.)

This kid was tiny.
(About the size of a baby. Unsurprisingly.)
He never cried once while I was holding him but he did snuffle a bit, blinked at me a lot and gripped my little finger with his entire hand. I was really quite moved.

I realised I was getting broody...

I looked down again at this baby, only an hour old, wrapped up warm; the top & back of his head were thinly covered with hair, his wrinkled face peered grumpily back at me.


And that's when I realised he looked just like my mate Ed.

Back

Nice to know you've missed me while I've been away!

I just flew back home to Blighty this evening.

It turns out that Derren Brown happened to be sitting on the plane a few seats in front (FYI I wasn't travelling Fancy Class, he and his entourage were flying Scum Class with the rest of us).

Unlike on the flight over, I found myself actually hoping the plane wouldn't crash.

Not for the obvious reasons (there would be less fun/flirting/blog posts if I died) but because, if the plane did crash, I wouldn't get mentioned on the news 'cos Derren'd get all the attention.


Is it wrong to want to be the most famous person on board?

Status set to Away

I'm going on holiday.

It's nothing personal, I just think we need to see other people for a bit.

It's not you, it's me.

But I've already thought of lots of things to talk about when I get back next week - including divorce, Orthopaedics & that nasty headache you get when you drink something freezing cold. I bet you can't wait.

I'll try & post something while I'm away, but I don't know if they have Internet abroad, so we'll see.

Meanwhile, feel free to leave nice messages.
(Don't nag about the next album though, the answer is still currently set to "I don't know when")


Play nice
- S -

Black & White

I went* to see some Shakespeare this weekend.

What can I tell you about Othello?

- It was brilliant

- It was fucking miserable

- For a musical, it was shit - there were, like, only two songs, and they were both pretty whiny

- If you shout "Encore" at the end of Shakespeare, people turn and look at you - I was hoping they'd do one of the scenes again.

- It's NOTHING like the board game.


Ho hum...


* against my will

C-c-c-cold

I don't feel too well.

I've done quite well avoiding all the bugs going round for the last few months, but finally one's caught me (or rather I've caught one).

I have a cough & the snuffles, that's all, just a simple cold. I'm not dying. It's probably not actually Asian Bloke Flu...

Yesterday I noticed that every time after I'd got the patient off to sleep, my consultant supervisor sent me off for a teabreak. In fact, he & I barely spent any time in theatre together. And then he sent me home early.
I was taking it personally - had I done something wrong? He saw I looked a bit dejected so he took me to one side.
"Thanks for doing all the work today" he said. "It's just that I'm going skiing next week & don't want to catch your virus."

Fair enough; I got home early.
(I might cough a bit louder today...)

EDIT: I got sent home early again today! Woo hoo!

Anyone who knows me will, at some point in our friendship, have accused me of having either TB or Chronic Bronchitis because when I have a cough, it lasts for ages. Sometimes months.

When I've got a mild cold though, my voice deepens a bit, which I think makes me sound more reassuring when I talk to patients.
Truly a VTMK. Very good for manipulating nurses...



It all started last week. I found out that one of my shoes has a hole in it.
(Sadly my discovery came shortly after I set off walking to work in the thick snow and couldn't do anything about it; I had quite a soggy foot for the rest of the morning.)

Only the one shoe has perforated though. I have a perfectly functioning plain black right one.


It's a shame I can't use the good one at all, I thought


Then I had an idea...

(and if you've read previous posts on this blog, you might see where this is going... )



Some might call it stingy. I prefer to call it resourceful.

(OK, OK, I'll go shopping this weekend...)

Look, who's stalking?

There appears to a fight starting in the comments section of the previous post.

To see who's the greater stalker.

On the one hand there's [name removed] a.k.a. Bitch a.k.a. Faith - she has multiple aliases, which already puts her in the lead.
As does the fact that she has the same birthday as me (although that could just be a coincidence, I suppose).

Since she found out my email address a year ago, she's MSN'd/emailed me almost continuously, especially when I'm at my computer trying to revise uninterrupted. When I moved house, I forgot to add* her email address on MSN - and then I passed my exams. I'm not saying there's a connection...

Anyway, because I was gonna be in London last weekend, on our shared birthday, I agreed to go for a drink (I brought some other friends too - I'm not stupid) - but as I expected, she turned out to be quite nice and not completely mental. She even got me a birthday card. Aw...


But now there's the new contender, known only as "anonymous". She's a nurse who has commented several times on the blog and appears to have gone to a lot of effort to find out where I work. Quite why she's done this, I do not know. But she frequently mentions this fact. Which in itself is a bit creepy.


Not as creepy as when I had an actual stalker though. Years ago when I used to work in A&E, a mother came in with one or other of her daughters several times over the space of a few weeks, each time concerned about a valid but minor problem. By chance, she happened to get me as her doctor each time. After her last visit, she asked for my address so she could send me a thankyou present (as it was nearly Xmas). Naturally I said no (I thought we weren't allowed to accept personal gifts - since then, I've learnt that presents are one of the best perks of being a Consultant or GP). The mum got surprisingly arsey, but I still said no, she could send a thank you card to the department if she wanted. I thought that that was that. That.

But next day, on my day off, I get a very concerned phone call from the A&E secretary, telling me that someone who claimed to be my girlfriend had rung the office a couple of times asking for my number, saying she'd lost her phone. This had aroused the secretary's suspicions, so she didn't give her my number, but instead immediately rang me up.

I was really quite touched that the secretary, who was normally quite a grumpy cow, had gone so much out of her way to check my well-being.


It turns out she just refused to believe that I might have a girlfriend.
Bitch.


*blocked

Two-Tyred

Had a bit of a Green Wing moment today.

After work, I rode my bike into town for a bit. I came back, knackered, to find that one of the entrances to the hospital bike sheds had been completely blocked off. So to put my bike away, a few metres away from where I was standing, I would have to cycle all the way round the hospital grounds.

Yeah right, would I bollocks!

I rode to the nearest entrance to the hospital building, and then I just kept going. And cycled right through the hospital corridors. (It's all right, my tyres were clean).

There weren't too many people around, so I said a polite Good Evening to whoever I passed (including, amusingly, several Security guards running in the opposite direction to sort out a problem elsewhere; probably a good thing - I wasn't wearing any hospital ID).


Great fun. Highly recommended.

(But don't D-lock your bike to a drip stand, they fall over.)

MMC-Hammered

Around the country, thousands of doctors have spent last weekend submitting online job application forms to MTAS (think UCAS but totally experimental and juggling peoples' entire lives & careers rather than just uni degrees).

In the end, the deadline had to be shifted from from yesterday to this morning because the website kept crashing - they weren't prepared for the number of people using the site.

How very reassuring that they are not going to completely fuck everything up for all of us.

Because it was my birthday on Saturday (thank you for your unimaginative kind messages, will tell you about it later), I'd got pretty much everything ready in advance so that I could just click the [send] button on Friday night and not worry about it all weekend.

So of course, I spent most of Saturday sifting through piles of paper, sipping champagne*, hammering out last-minute rewrites to the form...


















(Thank goodness for spellcheckers - it's so easy to misspell words like "aneathetist", "incompetant", "catastrophic" etc...)

This may (not) come as a surprise, but I don't find writing particularly easy, especially given the nature of the MTAS questions.

I'm uncomfortable enough about having to encapsulate the breadth of my clinical experience, incorporating every possible buzzword, to sell myself as the best, most qualified, compassionate, competent, reflective, trustworthy, conscientious doctor in the world.

In less than 150 words.

Whilst simultaneously not sounding like an utter prick.
("I am able leap tall buildings in a single bound"-type stuff.)

But then when they ask questions along the lines of "Give a specific example of a time when you found it challenging to maintain vigilance in an environment with infrequent demands?..." - what can you say? You can't just admit to falling asleep in theatre (or in an ambulance, ITU, talking to boring patients after you've had a heavy night out, etc...). I doubt there are marks allocated to reward that level of sheer honesty. But then again, you have to admit to something...

It's an absolute bloody minefield. Thank goodness it's all over...

Interviews in a few weeks (if I'm short-listed for any).

Then most of us suffer the whole process all over again in Round2.

And after that comes Clearing. Arrrgh!



*shut up, it was a birthday present

Happy birthday me!

Proper post to follow...