Atrás a trabajar..

Salam..

It has been quite some time since my last entry here.. and the main reason for it is that I'm now back to work..

It was definitely unplanned.. initially, I chose to be out of work as my dear hubby is working in the ED & I knew that his shifts are changing every week.. and it would be very inconvenient for us.. and I was proved right! last week I was working from 8am to 5/6pm and he was doing the 4pm-12am shift.. and this week he is doing 6pm-2am shift.. so we barely had the chance to speak to each other.. and for the past week, I had been breaking fast all by myself except for a few nights that I went out & the night that a few friends came over.. we are 'lucky' as for now as it is just the two of us.. I can't imagine the time when we will have children of our own.. I really don't think that this is sustainable..

I have been seriously thinking about non acute medicine.. although I love acute medicine, I don't think that I can survive a few more years to come before we can achieve the position that will allow us to have reasonable working hours.. A few days ago, we were discussing about this matter in our team.. about how many doctors chose the field that would give them the chance to have life outside the hospitals.. one of my colleagues was saying, the top achievers in his class are all taking radiology as they chose to have a good working hours.. and he himself is planning to pursuit haematology.. I do agree.. internal medicine are far too busy.. especially being a registrar.. during oncall, basically the registrar is taking care nearly all of the patients in the hospital - he/she needs to review all the new admissions, the sickies in the wards, the HDU patients and the surgical patients that need medical review.. it is a very demanding job.. I am not surprised that foreigner doctors are filling up the general internal medicine specialist registrar schemes as many of the locals chose not to do internal medicine..

And as for me, I haven't decided yet.. still doing lots of thinking.. many factors need considering.. and along the way, I continously seek the guidance from Allah... for He definitely knows whats best for me.. Although I have planned to be off work during this Ramadhan, He has better plan for me.. coming back to work this time makes me realised that I actually enjoy & miss working.. especially with great colleagues! I will definitely miss this team.. from my lovely SpR, 'crazy' fellow SHOs & superb interns, we are the A team! (or at least that is what we thought;p).. we are having great time together.. and I thank Allah for giving me the chance to enjoy my work.. and I hope I can stay happy & keep enjoying my work in many more years to come.. ameen..

I wish you happy celebrating the remainder of this Ramadhan..

Unsustainable..

Salam..

Not so long a day ago, I had vented about the stretch me and my fellow colleagues in ED are facing to keep the department, at the very least, crawling, if not walking.. I can say with very confident that I enjoy working in Emergency Medicine, and that is a fact.. But right now, because of shortage of personnel in the job, it feels like I am being sucked into the vortex of 'Job comes first, Life only then'.. It's like in the army!

Rota

The new rota has been proven rather 'inhumane' for us.. Tough, to say the least.. At the present, we are doing 12-2-14-break schedule.. That's twelve days straight (5x 9-hour shifts, then 2x 12-hour shifts, and then 5x 8-hour shifts) starting on Monday morning, finishing midnight on Saturday the week after.. Even that seems breathtaking to explain!

And after that is the long-awaited, highly-anticipated weekend off.. That's the '2' part..

And then, the nightmare stretch begins..

Five days of 6pm-2am shift Monday to Friday,
then 2pm-2am Saturday and Sunday,
then midnight-8am Monday to Friday,
then 8pm-8am Saturday and Sunday..

And all that is really hard to swallow..

After all that

After all that, then we get the deserved break for a week (after a week of nights, which is standard) but also have the opportunity to pull an annual leave entitled to us for another week.. Which in total gives us just under two weeks of leave.. Now, doesn't that sound lavish?

Of course, it does.. And I like the breaks! But, is it humanely possible for a doctor to work 26 out of 28 days, albeit shift work.. Sure, you wouldn't let a pilot fly an airplane for more than twelve hours, you don't see a truck driver on their ninth hour on their shift!

Venting.. Is that all there is?

Not really.. There is also the legality of it.. The European Working Time Directives (EWTD) has documented that doctors are to only be allowed to work at a maximum of 48 hours per week.. I'm sure by now you have your calculators out and start adding up the hours than you and I are clocking every week..

As for me :
Week 1 - 69 hours
Week 2 - 40 hours
Week 3 - 64 hours
Week 4 - 64 hours

Ooh.. That is easy way off the scale for legality, isn't it?

Well, hopefully the people of Ireland will understand this situation and will start talking and writing to local and national politicians, newspapers, TV stations and make the policy-makers understand what they are doing putting the populations life in the hands of overworked medical professionals..


Hopefully, in the next near future, Miss Harney will change something and make the system better, before it all collapses and lives are sacrificed..

Salam..

Tough.. And It Will Only Get Tougher..

Salam..

Just under a week (I guess) from my last entry, and here I am now again facing the blog page, scribbling nonsense.. Maybe, it is just another way of me venting..

Ramadhan

Alhamdulillah, we have now entered the holy month on Ramadhan.. Myself and Ina have now completed two days of fasting, and to be perfectly honest, it is quite different from the ones we had encountered before..

As we all are aware, the Hijri calendar is shorter than the Gregorian calendar, which essentially makes the Hijri months going 'backwards' in relation to the Gregorian.. And as we have anticipated and, in a way, 'feared', Ramadhan now is getting closer and closer to the summer times - at the season where the days are long and the nights are short.. Even for this Ramadhan, at least at the very beginning, fajr is around 4 o'clock and maghrib is around 9 o'clock in the evening.. That makes it easy 17 hours of fasting daily.. Put going to work in between that, and some other work-related issues, subhanallah, it is hard and challenging..

Day-1 of fasting is usually the hardest of them all where our body and mind are trying to adjust to the change.. Ina was oncall up till 10 o'clock last night.. She managed to finish by 9.30 pm.. Kak Riza and Ustaz Wan invited us to break our fast at their place, and so we did.. I picked Ina up and brought her there.. Thank you, to both of them..

Still another 28 days to go, insya-Allah..

Work

Work being work, it is tough and will only get worse, at the rate things are going.. Specifically, we are short of SHOs in the Emergency Department (ED).. At present we only have 5 out of possible 8.. Furthermore, we are short by one registrar..

And work in the department is not getting lighter, with the closure of some services in the satellite hospitals - Ennis, Nenagh and St. John's hospitals..

Fair play to the bosses who have worked, and still working, tirelessly to try to fill the quorum.. At the moment, we are doing 12-day shift, 2-day break, 14-day shift and then post-nights break.. With these numbers, the job is becoming less and less appealing for other people to apply.. *sigh*

A good news just before I left work today, insya-Allah we will be getting two new colleagues in the next two weeks.. So, hopefully this will help alleviate some of the burden we are experiencing..

There is 'I like the job' and there is 'I'm just too tired to cope with this job, no longer physically feasible for me'..

Well, so much for venting.. Maybe some more some other time.. Hopefully, I will be blogging about something more educational and meaningful the next time..

Salam..

No-Pilot Mode

Salam..

Alhamdulillah, I managed to squeeze some time to jot a word or two in this page.. To be honest, much has happened in the last few months that blogging was way down on priority list.. As a matter of fact, despite many of you had thought Ina was at home all along, it is not solely true.. She is back to work! So, you can only imagine what our schedule is like.. And what our house looks like!

June
June was quite a busy time for me.. I had loads of academic stuff going on and it took a lot of my time.. So, I will not bother you readers with my so-called educational strive..

One good thing that happened was my mom's birthday.. In all fairness, it was all Ina's brilliant idea.. We (and by 'we' I mean Ina) actually booked a surprise birthday present for mom.. It was a home delivery of a bouquet if flowers and a mocha cake.. But, I think Ina will disagree, and probably a bit disappointed, that they delivered the wrong flower and the wrong cake..

Mom with her birthday present - sent with love from Ireland

Believe me, the hard part was to make certain mom was at home at the time of delivery, without making her suspicious of the surprise plan..

June was also the month I bid farewell to Milford Care Centre.. Having worked there for a total of nine months, I suppose I will miss that place.. Despite not all people like to be working there, I enjoyed every bit of my time there.. I was sad to leave the service and move on to something almost totally opposite.. It felt like a farewell that I might not return to the place.. The first six months I was there, I knew I would be coming back later in 2010, bot not this time.. I got a cap from Dr Conroy and a book voucher from Dr Stodart as gifts.. I thank both of them whole-heartedly..

July
It was a new beginning for me.. I had decided that I want to do Emergency Medicine as a career pathway.. And so I did, having secured the job in Limerick before July came.. Unfortunately, instead of 8 SHOs, there are only six of us.. And we are short by one Registrar.. It only meant that the workload is greater and it will only get worse.. Nationally, there are 270 NCHD posts not filled on 1st of July, and the number is still increasing with people who have a job now opting to resign and flee the country.. It also means that training is getting more scarce as we speak..

Ina was also called to do a locum job given one Geriatric SHO had resigned and did not arrive on scene in Limerick on 1st of July.. Ina is doing a 3-month post as of now.. She will be back at home in October, insya-Allah..

August
It is only a few days in August and it feels like it is flying too quickly for my liking..

Erin celebrated her birthday back in Malaysia - unfortunately, being on-call on the day itself.. Zuhaili has now settled in UiTM in Medical Imaging, which is technically Radiography.. I haven't spoken with Intan for a while but last I checked she was managing okay.. Zaqwan is still in school at seems to do well..

As for me, life goes on with Ina here.. Where to next? I don't know yet.. Hoping to get an Anaesthetic SHO job in January as part of my own EM scheme.. Maybe look and assess my chances getting on to the Registrar Training Scheme for EM (SpR).. Otherwise, hmm.. Australia, maybe? I don't know.. I'm keeping my options open for now..

Well, Ramadhan is coming and before we know it, it will be Eid.. Alhamdulillah, I will be on leave on the week of Eid and the week after.. Unfortunately, because of shortage of SHOs, I am only now allowed to take one week off as annual leave after the night's week off.. It also means that traveling home to Malaysia will be difficult.. *Sigh*

Salam..