* Brother *

It always starts with a passover. Your shift's future depends mainly on one thing; who is passing over to you. Unfortunately for me, during this particular night shift, the person is one of my least favourite person.

So he saw me, his face lightened up and he smiled encouragingly. "Well," he announced, "let's pass over!"

The zone was full; there was even one patient on a stretcher, right in the middle of the zone.

"This patient, waiting for RP, came for uncontrolled DM. DXT already okay."
- patient came around 4pm.
"This Indian uncle, presented with left sided chest pain, awaiting Trop-T result."
- uncle was here since 5pm.
"This Malay boy, came with AGE symptoms, initially thought was dengue fever but turned out NS1-Ag negative. Waiting RP also."
- since 7pm.
"Wait a sec...oh! This pakcik complained of right-sided body weakness. Awaiting to go for CT brain."
- since 5.30pm.
"Another patient waiting to go for CT brain."
- the very confused Indonesian guy arrived around 8pm.
"Wait ah...eh I don't know this patient~ apparently he is from red zone. But they never passed over to me."
- a sepsis aunt with a DFU, planned to refer ortho team since 8.30pm but no documentations about referral.

Yup. That was how my shift started yesterday. By the time we finished our passing over, which was around 10.30pm, I had 2 new psy patients and tonnes of blood investigations results to trace. My "friend" happily took his bag and skipped out of the zone.

When I finally cleared up my zone, I did not even have the mood for sleep. I drank a can of Nescafe instead and watched the psy MO interviewing his patients.

I thanked Allah multiple times yesterday because my team (nurses, HO, MAs) were the awesomest!

People are talking about the way doctors treat patients in government hospitals in a substandard way. But, really, I am more concerned about how we doctors are treating our fellow doctors. I have had many personal experiences when other doctors seem to purposely making their colleague's life a living hell. There are times when another doctor refused to take my passovers, a senior MO just ignored me when I asked for her help and other incidents that ruin my day.

If you are coming to work for the wrong reasons, you can just forget about coming to work at all. After all, you can just open an internet business and stay at home in front of your computer and easily make more money than your current wages. Or just quit and do locum every day. If you want to work in a proper department with a proper team, please be a team player and help each other out. Oh, and, don't just help your "gang".

I cannot help but feel that, at times, the hospital is just another big high school. But I am not sure exactly who are the discipline teachers.

***

NEEDTOBREATHE - Brother (feat Gavin Degraw)


Ireallyneedtoblogagain.