Oh My ED !

Zero entry in September !!! This shows how depressed and stressed I was, working in this department. Apparently I made a wrong decision. I should have gone to the other department in the first place....Now that things are getting better and less stressful, I am back to this journal. A few important entries that I should include here.

OH MY EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

Such a disappointment!

One, the bosses. Hmm...I don't feel safe here. Usually specialist will be the one backing us up but not in this department.Here, one of them likes to say,"Okay, you do this and that, but don't write my name there." And he also likes to say, " What? I don't know about the case, don't ask me".The other one notices your shiny pants than the ill patients. In the middle of busy day, this person could approach you and tell you that your pants are too shiny or the table is not tidy, when you are super busy with your breathless patients.
MOs? Some of them are nice to work with, they teach a lot and they treat you as a human being.One of them likes to choose her own houseman. She even labelled the housemen whom she didn't like as rubbish - this one I heard with my own ears. The other one, he would call you when you are busy seeing patient and inform you that there is another case to be seen while he went back to his chair and sit down. Erkk!!???

Two, the triage system. It is managed by the trainee MAs...I honestly do not think that these people have enough knowledge and experience to be the front liner, triaging the cases.Patients triaged as yellow still being pushed in to green zone.In the end, patient is pushed back to yellow. Patient post MVA with minor trauma, noted to be tachycardic, is triaged green 1, when other vitals are stable, and patient also clinically stable. Come on, when patient is in pain, definitely the heart rate will go faster! A complicated malnourished end stage lung carcinoma patient in wheelchair, who came in with vomiting and poor oral intake, was triaged to green 2, just because his vital signs were stable.Clinically? Very bad...and he needs admission.I totally don't agree with the triage system here.Last two weeks, the supervisor aka the boss to the MAs who has so much experience of working in ED, triaged a fainted but responsive patient to red zone.What, you wanna tube this patient? Such a disappointment.

Three, the patients. Honestly, I started disliking patients when I started to work here. Look how they abuse the emergency system.Patients are the most cruel abuser of the system! They simply call the ambulance to pick up their elderly parent, who complaint of knee pain for one month, left the elderly in ED and not bother to accompany their own parent. Do they think government hospital is an old folks home or a charity home? Some people called ambulance to send their father to hospital because the father is vomiting, so they don't want him to dirty their car. What??? They call ambulance for non-emergency purposes, just because here, the service is free and it is provided for everyone...but the more annoying one is when they call public ambulance, and when the ambulance arrive, they ask the staff to send patient to private hospital like der??? Please at least have the effort to call the operator and ask for the private hospital number. Patients also abuse the triage system, they know that if they said they are having chest pain, they will be ushered in straight away to green 1.So, even for simple URTI, they will complain of chest pain, so that they will be seen immediately. In the end, the resources will be wasted, we will investigate like everything, from ECG to bloods..to realize that patient actually is the best actor ever! There are so many more real stories about these abusers but just not worth writing them.

Four, the shift system. Initially I thought that working in shift will be better but no!!!I hate the shift hours and definitely I am not a shift person. Post night means you only can go home at 9 o'clock and that is very late already. When your GCS is already dropping, you still have to see patients at 7 am because your morning colleagues only start at 8 am.

For the last two weeks, my friends and I were in a deep depressed state. All because of logbook, clinical exams and whatever requirements the department wants us to fulfill.Luckily alhamdulillah we managed to settle them all. I was down with fever with bad URTI that time.All my energy was used to fight the illness and I had to strive to complete all the assignments.

Now that everything has been submitted, I feel much relieved and calm, just waiting for another two days before I stop working as a houseman, go for a long leave and upgrade to a medical officer, insyaAllah.

*** All the above writing is my personal point of views

.....journal to be continued