She literally killed my name.Its lakdhesz.🙄
"I don't want to work anymore..I feel like quiting.Can we do something else?"she asked.
I felt the same.
"But don't ask me what because I really don't know,"she sighed.
Last night itself, I was assisting 1 emergency lower segment caesarean section pushed from labour room for abnormal CTG and one csec with bilateral tubal ligation.Finished that,went for gynecology OT and assisted ruptured ectopic pregnancy laparoscopy with right ovarian cyst plus unilateral tubal ligation.That was cool but holding and guiding the camera for 2 hour and half was a feeling that word could explain;moreover after a great arm and shoulder workout.
If the medical officer or specialist is good and kind,the day felt great.
It's like learning forward what most won't be able to see in their houseman life but when the mos are bad,it felt terrible..
Whatever it is, everyday is a battle.
Who knows which mo will be there for that day..
Does it worth it?I don't know.
Back in Bangladesh, I used to wirte my own prescription.Even for x-rays,it was very simple with a single prescription but here, numerous forms,we have to request,get scolded..
Again,does it worth the effort?
Toxic environment,less good helpful friends, humiliation,mental agony and unnecessary stress..
All that for that pay?
Working 12 to 18 hours for something less than what my friends that working 7 to 5 earning?
Did i made a mistake or am I at the wrong place?
In Bangladesh's working environment,with such numerous amount of patients, everything was different.I was always in the flow.I don't even feel hungry nor have the sense that time is moving.
Here, I kept looking at the clock.
'7 hours more,4 hours more,last 45 minutes ,hold on.'
What kind of life is this?
Does others from different hospitals experiencing the same?
I saw my ptm friends from different hospitals doing great,going out for movies and dinners, laughing out loud..
What am I missing?
A constant question running in my head that needs an answer.STAT
Hi Dr,
ReplyDeleteThere are many other career pathways if anybody wants to quit housemanship. However, be prepared to work in non-clinical side since APC is required for anybody who wants to pursue careers in clinical medicine. The options are:
1) Medical statistics (my specialty. USM Kubang Kerian Kelantan has an Msc in Medical Statistics programme).
2) Medical education
3) Anatomy (It is an Msc programme. Not MMed)
4) Sports Medicine
5) Biochemistry (The laboratory one)
6) Genetics (You will learn lots of the standard laboraty techniques for genetics such as DNA extraction, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), gel electrophoresis, DNA sequencing (these are all for the standard genomic works. there are other more sopihisticated ones such as microarray and real time PRC but these stuffs are expensive so not many research projects can afford these kinds of equipments). For proteomics and metobolomics, you have to learn other methods as well and these are beyond what I endeavour to succintly explain here.
7) Pharmacology (I had 6 month stint of research in pharmacogenomics, an integrated research project that involve the application of genetics and pharmacology. the aim is to develop some sort of personalised medicine approach for this one drug that I was under investigation by my ex research group. I learnt a great deal of things during this 6 month stint, made me fall in love with pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modelling. The knowledge obtained during this period really helps me during my current preparation for FRCR (oncology) clinical pharmacology paper).
8) Microbiology. (again the lab side)
9) Neuroscience (An Msc programme in USM. The people in the Department of Neuroscience, USM are actively recruiting students now. If you are interested in the non clinical side of nervous and brain diseases, this one really suits you well).
The only problem is funding for your studies. One of the approaches is to go and meet the head of the department and clearly state your interest in pursuing you research in the chosen field. The HOD might be asking several standard questions, for instance why did you choose to leave your medical career. A cogent and convincing should be given (an honest one too !) and if you are lucky enough, the HOD might accept you as a trainee fellow. There are two downsides if this case: 1) the available positions for trainee fellows are extremely limited nowadays due to cost cutting and austerity measures imposed on our local universities. hence, new hiring is extremely restricted; 2) You need to get a PhD later on. By then, they will formally accept you as a university lecturer. However, the salary scheme is DS, instead of DU since you don't have APC. Consequently, there will be a wide discrepancy / gap in terms of you net salary between you (DS Uni lecturer) and your friends who work in the same deparment but who are medical lecturers with annually-renewable APCs (DU Uni lecturer).
The other option to do your research and earn a decent salary at the same time is to work as a contractual research offier (RO) or research assistant (RA) under the lead investigator's research grant. You will have the opportunity to you use parts of the research project as your MSc or PhD (upon conversion from MSc to PhD after a year of research. Difficult but doable, especially if your preliminary findings are strong and groundbreaking with many novelties) project. However, the salary is barely enough to help you get by since you will be paid around 2500 to 3000 (in UM, UKM and UPM perhaps). Furthermore, you still need to save some money to pay your semester tuition fee. For this reason, if you manage to obtain a university fellowship post (option A as explained above), better grab this since the tuition fee is covered and you will receive a monthly stipend for the duration of your studies.
I have many other things to share with you but I think my explanation is already long enough. Do ask any question if you require further clarification. Cheers. And thank you for your kind wishes for my FRCR examinations.
When your work life is dull, what is really missing is the enthusiasm for your work. I remember I had the same feeling as you prior to quitting my housemanship. Basically, I just couldn't wait to rush off from the ward on daily basis. I think anybody can handle the workload and hectic life as a doctor, but the constant scolding and outright bullying are real put-offs.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I used to get these half-cooked excuses from my detractors; I am a strawberry lah, lembik lah, have this manjalitis condition etc. Some of them even had the audicity to say that this kind of training (including the daily bullying and humiliation that every house officer had to suffer at that time) was to toughen me so that I could become a good and competent doctor. I couldn't find any correlation between being abused and becoming competent doctor. What a I understand are bullying begets another bullying (in the next generation of course) and the junior house officers will learn nothing from constant scolding and brazen humiliation from the medical officers. I used to think that this bullying stuff is like previlege accorded to a full-blooded predator (the one who already killed at least an alien warrior) and only the full-blooded predators are allowed to bully the non-blooded predators (a.k.a. the house officers). This kind of culture creates some sort of tribal mentality among the medical fraternity in Malaysia and as a result, no changes will occur in the near future to improve the training quality of house officers in our country.
Thanx for the explanation brother..was very useful..will figure out this shit soon
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