Surgery's over in 2 days!

yesh... i'm back to work and hence the lack of entries the past few days. let's see, ever since i started work again, i've been reaching home past 7pm except for tues cos i was on call. haha...

uh huh... tt's general surgery for you. life's tough... hours are long but i must say, i've been happy at work! really!! (dun gimme the dubious look! i'm serious!!)

i think the ppl play an impt role. i've been having extremely wonderful luck in this beginning of my work life. (hopefully it continues...) let's see, i've been working with really really nice teams with nice ppl for the past 4 months. plus my fellow HO colleagues are all gems... helping out one another whenever they could.

just so glad i chose the right place to start work. we all make mistakes here and there cos we just started out... so it's really impt to have understanding superiors who dun kick up a big fuss and spoil ur day when that happens. and we're all learning here... so it's equally impt to have encouraging bosses who thank you and appreciate your efforts when you're doing the right things. i've been getting all these wonderful superiors so far. thank my lucky stars man!!(hey! i'm not bootlicking la... none of them read my blog anyway!)

so will i choose surgery as a career? well... i really enjoyed the posting but tt's cos i'm just a HO. looking at how hard my MO's and Reg's work, i really hafta think twice about becoming a surgeon. yeah... the satisfaction is pretty gratifying... just like how my consultant said "After you do the first appendicectomy and you see your patient walk out of the hospital, you'll just get hooked into surgery!" but do i really want such a rough road ahead?

hmm... i think it's still too early to judge huh? i shall go through my medicine posting first. maybe after tt, i'll have some insight to what i wanna be. went for a career talk and got some advice from the speaker. he said "you should find out what keeps you going in your job and go into the specialty that satisfies that." (not really in verbatim la but the essence is there.)

it's just pretty amazing cos i see these registrars and consultants who work really hard... (regardless of whether surgery, infectious disease, cardiology, whatever specialty, some of them were still seeing patients at 7pm when i left the hospital just now!!) so my goodness! the HO's are definitely not the only ppl who are overworked in the hospital! but the energy and zest they put in to care for the patients is really admirable! to be able to maintain that kinda zest, they must really love their job a lot!! i really hope i have tt same amt of passion in my work 20 years down the road...

i also found out that the bottom line is really still "you must wanna care for the patients!" once you have that, it's enough motivation for you to stay late, go all out to do stuff for the patient (be it to arrange for a scan or take blood) or even talk to and reassure the patient or their relatives. i realized that ultimately, those seniors who impresses me and whom i learn lots from, are those who really care for the patients too.

one of my good friend and colleague once said to me that when she's at work, she feels that she is constantly checking just to make sure she won't get scolded later on by her superiors. i feel that if the basis of whatever you do for the patient (or TO the patient) is for the best interest of the patient, you will never be at fault. (of course, that is provided you consult your superiors if in any doubt at anytime cos we're after all still HO's without enough clinical experience.)

anyway, i shall not fret for now although i feel quite lost in life sometimes. some of my colleagues are already pretty sure what path they wanna choose... some are even planning which exams to take already! i'm sure i'll be able to find a niche somehow... a place where i can settle for the next 40 yrs of my life and get as much satisfaction as i want! same for u, my friends!