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Sunday, November 05, 2006 Today is Guy Fawkes Day. Lots of Fireworks. Back in London And so, it has been decreed - I am back in London to work. Well, I'm actually on the border or London and Surrey now, and so they are more or less interchangeable. Sorry I haven't been able topost for a while. Have had a lot going on for the past few months actually, which I will try to go into in detail, bit by bit. :+: Work I have started working as an F2/SHO/MO1 in Trauma & Orthopedics at the moment. It is tough-going. Three months into it, I'm just about getting into the hang of it. It does help when I have quite a nice reg (both ex- and present) who are willing to teach, even though I ask lots of stupid questions and he (and everyone in the orthopedic department) thinks i'm most probably a nitwit. I've done my dues of having to do 3 weekends in a row as well as many many weekday oncalls, one after another, in the span of the first 2 months. I have also taken a break in the first 2 weeks of October, and come back on a Friday afternoon (after the flight is delayed from morning to afternoon), then started on a week of nights which was horrendous. Being handed over 5-10 patients from the day's take is not funny. Being handed over 2 sick patients with nothing done for them is not funny. It's just taking the piss. Following that, I did the weekend on Sat and Sun after finishing on Friday morning, sleeping the whole of Friday day time, and being crazy and manic on the weekend. That was fun. BUT... I've survived it all. I've done my dues for oncalls, and am just left with 3 more weekday oncalls. I'm glad that I know a little bit more about Orthopedics when I first started. And I have confidence that I can do an MUA or K wires or a DHS or a hemi on my own now! =D And I can safely say, I actually don't hate Orthopedics. In fact, I'm enjoying it! Being the only female SHO and the most junior one at that, gives some advantages and other disadvantages. We shall not go into that, but put it this way. I had to work doubly hard to be accepted, let alone for my opinions to be accepted. Think the SHO/couple of the Regs are trying on something more than work (on me). Enuff said. :+: End of Kent I've finished Neonates and Community Paeds in Medway. It was a great experience, and if given a choice, I would do neonatal ICU in a heartbeat. But now that I'm doing surgery now, I think it's really the thing for me. I've finished the Part 1 exams and passed them (bloody bugger, it was more difficult than finals!). Because it was towards the end of the F1 year and all of us were going separate ways, there were lots of leaving-dos and BBQs (given that it was summer), and we had the Summer Ball and the Boat trip (which went around the river in Maidstone), and it was just fantastic fun! The photos are out on my website, and it brings back so many lovely memories. So much so that during the first 2 weeks of my new job, I wanted to go back to the familiarity of Kent every day I finish. After the boat trip, hooked up with someone, on a temporary basis. Fun, I suppose, but it's quickly tiresome. During that last month, amongst work and all the leaving-do-dahs, plus a short trip to Dublin, I had to arrange for leave in my next job, and find a place to live in as well (looking at 15 places in a span of 2 days and deciding then and there is not joke), pack all my stuff (a pain in the arse - you never know how much rubbish you can accumulate in a year), bought a car, settle my car insurance, and move all my stuff from far-off Kent back to London, and get used to the new area that I moved into. All that in the span of a month. I'm proud of myself. :+: Trips Abroad I've been to the West coast (July 2005), the East coast (May 2006) of the States now. Went to Dublin in July 2006, then I just came back from Russia and Finland and Sweden this October. A similar period to last year, October 2005, where I went to Eastern Europe (Prague, Poland and Hungary). Next trip? Back to good old home in Feb 2007 for CNY, and what next? Who knows.. More about the trip later and lots of photos!! :+: Meeting-up Amongst all the busy on-calls and essentially no-life for the past 3 months while trying to organise bank accounts and on-calls and get used to living in my new area, I realised that it's not enough just working. I need to have my life back. I need to have my sports back. After swimming almost every day in Kent in summer, and not having any outside sports in 2 months since my new job started has taken its toll. I needed something else. And therefore, I'm back to volleyball! =D It's been great going back to it again, especially when I'm playing with the teams again and competitions! In fact, due to my own stupidity at not warming up properly, think I sprained my wrist and therefore couldn't play in the match last week. Guess what happened then? I became the umpire instead! It's sooooo different being the umpire, unbiased. I realised that you just have to stick to your guns. I've gotten back to the routine of going for clinics, seeing my own patients and being confident of my own diagnoses and management plans. I'm happy doing theatre lists with my bosses as well, and am quite happy that they allow me to do more and more. My boss in fact, can make jokes (which he usually never does)! And we can actually share them and laugh at them! I've gotten back to meeting up with long-lost friends (neglected for the past year), and having dinners at their places/outside, and just catching up. Went out with my reg, Made new friends, and went a bit high this weekend as well. It was great fun. =) Celebrated Stan's birthday yesterday too at the Roadhouse in Covent Garden. The live band was absolutely brilliant! Would love to have my birthday there. =) Lots to say, not much time or inclination to type my most private thoughts out here. Surface to say, it's been eventfully unremarkable. Got to go now, but hope to put up my pics and stories soon! Catcha later on. |