My patients keep me going!

Work's been ill-treating me man... I've been working crazy 12-hr weekdays and 6-day weeks! sometimes it's so bad, i really feel like shunning away from specializing cos hospital work's just so tiring and time-consuming. as expected, my social life and personal time are in the rutts.

My department's one of the few medical subspecialties with EVENING rounds. Our evening rounds can sometimes occur at around 6.30pm. As you can imagine, 6.30pm is the most horrendous time for drs to be seen in the wards. why? cos it's VISITING HOURS!!

Numerous times while we struggle through our evening rounds, trying to finish up as quickly as we can so the whole team can go home to nice hot dinner soon or go for our hot dates (if any is willing to wait for us), we get waylaid by concerned relatives and families of the patients. There was once, i was literally hopping from one bed to another updating relatives! and needless to say, i ended my work at 8pm!

I think sometimes ppl forget that drs are humans. Once drs were deemed as god-sent angels and hence was well-respected by everyone in the public. Everyone LISTENS to their drs and leave their trust and lives in their hands. Now, drs are deemed as superhumans too... minus the trust bit that is. I can't help but feel that sometimes what we're providing now is really just a SERVICE to them.

And yet, i still love my job.

Yeah... with such a tough life, un-appreciative relatives, crazy work hours... if i dun love my job, i would've given up long ago.

It's my patients who make me smile everyday when i go home. Well... i have this extremely difficult patient who initially kept pulling out his tubes and even refused to let us examine him. I had to go every morning and afternoon to chit chat with him (my reg calls it "CHARM him") and cajole him. I promised him that with time, i'll try my best to remove his NG tube, tracheostomy, pigtail catheter in his tummy, urinary catheter and finally the physical restraints one by one. And wow!! look at him now... I've kept my promise and he's now off all tubes already! and he waves to me every morning with a smile!

Another very very cute patient who's soooo jovial despite the fact that he has liver cancer. he shows me all the different toys and cute stuff his family brings for him... like this pair of socks with eyes on it (which he says helps him to "kan4 lu4"- watch the roads), this bouncy paper doll given to him by his grand-daughter and a nice purple pillow for him to hug during his sleep. And he recently just had RFA for his liver cancer... after the procedure, he was telling me "HA! you made it sound so scary, actually it's nothing at all!!" (must've been cos of the risks of the procedure i'm forced to explain)

My other patient who came in with GCS 3 (i.e. absolutely CONKED OUT)... hepatic encephalopathy. After clearing his bowels, he slowly woke up... and i mean slowly... he literally took abt 4 days to wake up completely. 1st day, he opened his eyes to pain. 2nd day, he opened his eyes to calling and moved his limbs in response to pain stimulus. 3rd day, he opens his eyes and mumbles "good good". 4th day, he opens his eyes, says his name and waves his arms at me. and now, he's happily at home with his children!!

Words of compliments from my patients make my day... or sometimes just a recognition that i'm working hard for them is enough. some of them says things like "how come you're always around in the hospital!" or "so late and you're still working??"

Beyond that, it's the human interaction that teaches me a lot. I guess ultimately, if i treat my patients and their family with sincerity and respect, i get their trust in return. this transaction doesn't occur easily... doesn't even occur ALL the time... it takes a while to establish such a relationship. And the stronger this rapport becomes, the feeling of me doing them a service diminishes. I start to feel for them as a friend and they slowly learn to trust me and learn that i'm just someone who really wants to help them.

and that is why i love my job. (and i believe that is why so many of my colleagues love theirs too!)