For the next four weeks, I will live the vampire lifestyle, or at least keep the same hours. I am assigned to do the graveyard shift: from 10:30 pm to 8:30 am the next morning. The shift started in the middle of the first week and goes for seven nights straight. I then have seven days off, followed by another block of seven nights, then I have five days off before starting back on regular schedule. So, in four weeks, I will actually be working for fourteen days.
So during the fourteen days when I will be working, my sleep cycle will be upside down and turned completely around. Having done night shifts during my emergency term, I now have a bit of experience on how to ensure I have a good day of sleep in between my shifts. I have made my room into a bat cave: windows are shut, blinds are closed, heavy curtains ensure that as little light as possible leaks in, add eye shades from long-haul flights, and my brain will think it’s the middle of the night even during high noon. I set the radio to the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company, similar to NPR in the States) to serve as background noise. Ear plugs are handy for when the neighbors decide to rev up their cars. For the first couple of shifts, Phenergan just makes the quality of the sleep a little bit better without me feeling groggy when I wake up in the evening.
I actually think doing the graveyard shift allows me to have time for other things. I can wake up in the late afternoon or early evening and still have time to go to the gym, visit friends, and leisurely cook my meals before I start my shift. The downside is that, the weekend, when everyone is out, is the middle of the week for me and I have to follow the same sleep routine. It does not matter how gorgeous the day is or how inviting the beach may be, I have to go straight home for bed after my shift.
To push my sleep schedule back, last night I stayed up until 5:30 am before dragging myself to bed. I had a decent day of sleep today, so tonight I will start pretty fresh. But I know it will be a struggle by 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. But that’s when my good friend joe will come to my rescue – a couple cups of it, and I can stay awake at least until sunrise. Then it’s pretty much smooth sailing to the end of the shift. Unless, of course, if the arrest pager goes off.
Okay, my shift is about to start; think positive: no arrests tonight, no arrests tonight…
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
I’m Still Alive!
Yeah, I am still here. It has been over six months after the last entry on my blog; now I am back.
Short summary of what happened in the last six months. I worked. Okay, you are all caught up now. Here is a little more detail if you are interested.
My first term was in vascular surgery – arguably the busiest term in the whole hospital, so it wasn’t exactly a way to ease into this back-to-full-time-work-and-trying-to-be-a-doctor internship thing. Having been thrown into the deep end, I basically spent the whole ten weeks trying to keep my head above water. Fortunately for me, I was in a team of incredibly good registrars and resident. So despite the hectic days, I felt like I was very well supported. The hours were grueling – by non-North American standards – from sixty-five to seventy-five hours per week. I felt like I only came home to sleep. So I spent the time that I had off either cycling along the beach or up the mountain or going to the beach with a book.
During that time a half dozen or so blog entries gathered in my computer and I never got around to finishing them. The perfectionist in me just would not allow myself to put them online without editing. And so in my computer they languished – half done, clumsy, and not fit to see the light of day.
My second term was in emergency. I had a blast! The work was interesting; the team was good to work with, mostly; one of the consultants has the ability to make interns feel like the most inadequate person in the world. I always stuttered when I handed patients over to that consultant. The hours were awesome: each week consisted of four ten-hour shifts and three days off. Having come from vascular surgery, forty hours per week felt like a holiday. So I treated my days off like holidays: biking, going to the beach, reading non-medical books, going to the gym (and sauna), going to Sydney, etc. My blog continued to sit idle. It had already been a couple of months, my unfinished entries were still waiting to be edited, but they were getting lower and lower on my priority list. I figured: who reads it anyway?
I was in the States last month on my annual leave. A couple of friends I saw mentioned that they hadn’t seen anything new on my blog. I even got emailed from some random person asking about it. So apparently people do read it.
All right, now that I have left my blog static long enough to have lost all three of my readers, I am going to give it another go.
Short summary of what happened in the last six months. I worked. Okay, you are all caught up now. Here is a little more detail if you are interested.
My first term was in vascular surgery – arguably the busiest term in the whole hospital, so it wasn’t exactly a way to ease into this back-to-full-time-work-and-trying-to-be-a-doctor internship thing. Having been thrown into the deep end, I basically spent the whole ten weeks trying to keep my head above water. Fortunately for me, I was in a team of incredibly good registrars and resident. So despite the hectic days, I felt like I was very well supported. The hours were grueling – by non-North American standards – from sixty-five to seventy-five hours per week. I felt like I only came home to sleep. So I spent the time that I had off either cycling along the beach or up the mountain or going to the beach with a book.
During that time a half dozen or so blog entries gathered in my computer and I never got around to finishing them. The perfectionist in me just would not allow myself to put them online without editing. And so in my computer they languished – half done, clumsy, and not fit to see the light of day.
My second term was in emergency. I had a blast! The work was interesting; the team was good to work with, mostly; one of the consultants has the ability to make interns feel like the most inadequate person in the world. I always stuttered when I handed patients over to that consultant. The hours were awesome: each week consisted of four ten-hour shifts and three days off. Having come from vascular surgery, forty hours per week felt like a holiday. So I treated my days off like holidays: biking, going to the beach, reading non-medical books, going to the gym (and sauna), going to Sydney, etc. My blog continued to sit idle. It had already been a couple of months, my unfinished entries were still waiting to be edited, but they were getting lower and lower on my priority list. I figured: who reads it anyway?
I was in the States last month on my annual leave. A couple of friends I saw mentioned that they hadn’t seen anything new on my blog. I even got emailed from some random person asking about it. So apparently people do read it.
All right, now that I have left my blog static long enough to have lost all three of my readers, I am going to give it another go.
Monday, January 12, 2009
New Beginning
It is barely six o'clock, but I am wide awake. Today is the first day of a week of orientation for the batch of new interns. The mix of nervous energy, expectation, and anticipation swirl around my head as I head to the auditorium of the hospital. It is exactly the same feeling as the first day of medical school four years ago. We gather in the foyer, introduce ourselves to one another, and make the obligatory "Hi, where are you from? What uni did you go to? What made you come to Wollongong?..." small talk. There's a buzz of energy in the room; I can feel the excitement in the air. After all these years of putting our noses to the grindstone, it really is exciting that we are finally going to take the first real step toward a lifelong career, and for me, a second career. I am finally going to have a real job and a regular income again. The cynic in me knows that, as time goes by and as we go through the trials and tribulations of post-graduate training, the enthusiasm and idealism we have today will seem naive sometimes. But today, I feel like my whole life is laid out before me and the possibilities endless. Today, I feel like an adult again.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
In the Nick of Time
After a somewhat tense and suspense-filled two days, I logged onto my email this morning for the nth time to check my visa status.
It turned out that the only sure way to get things moving was to get on the phone. So, for example, when things like the person assigned to your case got moved to a different section of the Department of Immigration and your file ended up sitting on a desk without anyone looking at it for a month happen, you can get someone to maybe give a sideway glance at the big pile of paper with your name on it. And when they call you back saying that they can't process your paperwork because of some technicality, you can get the hospital sponsor to call them back and tell them to stop being ridiculous. After a bit of back-and-forth like that, I was finally promised that my visa would be finalized yesterday afternoon.
This morning, I logged onto my email, only to find that the notification for my visa's approval in the spam folder. Maybe it was the word "approved" in the subject line or that the text of the email sounded too much like one of those get-rich-quick come-ons, the email filter had decided that it was too good to be true.
That must be the best piece of spam I have ever got.
It turned out that the only sure way to get things moving was to get on the phone. So, for example, when things like the person assigned to your case got moved to a different section of the Department of Immigration and your file ended up sitting on a desk without anyone looking at it for a month happen, you can get someone to maybe give a sideway glance at the big pile of paper with your name on it. And when they call you back saying that they can't process your paperwork because of some technicality, you can get the hospital sponsor to call them back and tell them to stop being ridiculous. After a bit of back-and-forth like that, I was finally promised that my visa would be finalized yesterday afternoon.
This morning, I logged onto my email, only to find that the notification for my visa's approval in the spam folder. Maybe it was the word "approved" in the subject line or that the text of the email sounded too much like one of those get-rich-quick come-ons, the email filter had decided that it was too good to be true.
That must be the best piece of spam I have ever got.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Sydney Tour
Today I am on a whirlwind tour of Sydney. But it doesn't involve the Harbour Bridge; there's no visit of the Opera House; nor am I getting anywhere near any of the beaches. Today is a day dedicated to satisfying the Australian bureaucracy.
I got back to Brisbane early yesterday morning. I went over to the med school to pick up my diploma, had coffee with a good friend who is heading back to Canada, went back to the place I last lived and re-packed my bag - I needed to dump out my travel gear and pack some work clothes - and headed back to the airport for a night flight to Sydney.
The flight was delayed - first by twenty minutes, then it became half an hour, then it stretched to forty-five minutes. At the end, the flight was one-and-half hours late. I flew on Virgin Blue, another budget airline - well, you got your hits and you got your misses. My housemate picked me up from the airport. By the time I got to Wollongong and settled into the hospital quarters, it was well past midnight.
Which brings us to this morning. My housemate is taking me on a tour of the backstreets of Sydney, but mainly to visit two places: the New South Wales Medical Board and the Department of Immigration. I am supposed to start orientation for work next Monday, but I don't have my work visa sorted yet. Besides the mountain of supporting documents I had submitted, Immigration wanted to see my diploma and registration with the Medical Board. The New South Wales Medical Board requires that all interns coming in from out of state to register with them in person.
With my diploma in hand, I walk into the Medical Board. Registration itself is actually a pretty painless affair, it takes all of ten minutes; the most difficult part is getting to their office. Then next step is to drive to Immigration and convince them that I have in fact graduated from medical school and am now a registered doctor. It is one of those take-a-number-and-wait affairs, not unlike what one would do at the supermarket deli, except in this case, my fate - whether I will be able to work in Australia or be packed off onto the next flight out of the country - is firmly in the hands of the person behind the counter. With my paperwork handed over to them, my day is finished. The only thing I can do now is to wait while my paperwork churns through the mysterious workings of the innards of the Australian bureaucracy. Perhaps the planets will align and the person processing my paperwork will come back from holiday in a good mood and I will get my visa on time to start my orientation next week. At this point, I kind of wish that I can grease some palms and get things sped up a bit.
Or maybe I will occupy myself with the next task - looking for a place to live.
I got back to Brisbane early yesterday morning. I went over to the med school to pick up my diploma, had coffee with a good friend who is heading back to Canada, went back to the place I last lived and re-packed my bag - I needed to dump out my travel gear and pack some work clothes - and headed back to the airport for a night flight to Sydney.
The flight was delayed - first by twenty minutes, then it became half an hour, then it stretched to forty-five minutes. At the end, the flight was one-and-half hours late. I flew on Virgin Blue, another budget airline - well, you got your hits and you got your misses. My housemate picked me up from the airport. By the time I got to Wollongong and settled into the hospital quarters, it was well past midnight.
Which brings us to this morning. My housemate is taking me on a tour of the backstreets of Sydney, but mainly to visit two places: the New South Wales Medical Board and the Department of Immigration. I am supposed to start orientation for work next Monday, but I don't have my work visa sorted yet. Besides the mountain of supporting documents I had submitted, Immigration wanted to see my diploma and registration with the Medical Board. The New South Wales Medical Board requires that all interns coming in from out of state to register with them in person.
With my diploma in hand, I walk into the Medical Board. Registration itself is actually a pretty painless affair, it takes all of ten minutes; the most difficult part is getting to their office. Then next step is to drive to Immigration and convince them that I have in fact graduated from medical school and am now a registered doctor. It is one of those take-a-number-and-wait affairs, not unlike what one would do at the supermarket deli, except in this case, my fate - whether I will be able to work in Australia or be packed off onto the next flight out of the country - is firmly in the hands of the person behind the counter. With my paperwork handed over to them, my day is finished. The only thing I can do now is to wait while my paperwork churns through the mysterious workings of the innards of the Australian bureaucracy. Perhaps the planets will align and the person processing my paperwork will come back from holiday in a good mood and I will get my visa on time to start my orientation next week. At this point, I kind of wish that I can grease some palms and get things sped up a bit.
Or maybe I will occupy myself with the next task - looking for a place to live.
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