Today i've finally crossed swords with her royal highness. Thought i could survive 4 months without having to ever cross her path, but i guess dat was wishful thinking. Interesting way it unfolded though.

There was this post-op review dat i was supposed to do, but i was busy, and my fren who popped by, offered to help me, which i of course jumped on the offer. But perhaps my fren was not too familiar with the post-op orders, so he told the patient something not so right. Just happen dat this patient belongs to the royal highness, so while i was walking down to have lunch, i received a call. And there was a 5 min lecture on wat i "said" wrong, cuz the review was chopped with my name. Somehow i reflexly said i didn't say anything like this to any patient, den i realise the next questions she'll ask is who did? Sry bro... couldn't keep you out of it...

So another 5 min of if us 2 seen this patient, should indicate in the notes. If not i'll be held solely responsible for wat happened. And how this is bad documentation.

A few lessons learnt from this episode

TRUST
I trust my friends very much, and will still do. I think it's impt to have trust in each other's work. Sometimes when i do discharges, i realise dat the hx and past hx is very skimpy. So much so dat a lot of the past hx is often left out. I've lost count of the times the coder comes up to me and ask me to write a piece of past hx of this patient. Impt things like depression, heart valve disease are all not mentioned, but it's all in the old clinic notes. Perhaps just a quick flip of the old notes to see wats relevant would be good. I think no matter how busy we are, we have to take responsiblity over the patient, and give them our best, even if it means skipping lunch or being late for something. Make the clerking sheet the most useful piece of info u can leave to ur colleagues.

RESPONSIBILITY
The feeling this place gives me is dat of competition. Very strong competition, like ppl are trying to outshine each other. Not so amongst the HOs maybe, becuz a good number of us didn't quite choose this. I dun like this feeling.

Reponsibility towards my patients is my top priority. I'll leave the "competition" to those who deem it as impt.

LEARNING
Not much education takes place at work. I think formal teaching is not very useful. More useful is the day to day work, and questions we ought to bring up along the way. But everyone is too busy to spend 5 min to explain to u something.

Trying to educate myself though talking to the support stuff, like nurses.

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Work has been fun. Been enjoying talking to the nurses and the coder. They have such a wealth of experiences to share, be it about life stories, patient care, medicine, doctoring to even wat sri lanka is like. I enjoy having to do rounds alone before the consultants come and r/v the cases. Makes me think. Think you stop thinking and learning if u do the same thing day in day out. Must always take home something everyday, think dats wat Prof Low told me once. Be it learning about the management for a condition, or setting a plug faster, or the patient's social hx. Something new everyday keeps you going.

They say HOship is tough. I think it's just tiring, as much as exciting.

Reading "The Little Prince" now, thnx to ley shuang. She left it in my MO room one day. It's a relli good book.