*facepalm*
The Burren, Co. Clare
Sometimes when I speak to people about where I am and what I’m doing, I get the sense that they’re wondering if I regret leaving medicine. The answer is no, but I do miss it.
Leaving medicine was definitely the right decision for me, but I miss a lot about it. I enjoyed most of my degree. Actually, what I miss most is studying medicine, learning and knowing useful and helpful stuff, and being amazed at the intricacies of the human body - how perfect and imperfect we are. I miss problem-solving! That was so much fun and so incredibly satisfying! And, I miss having the answers - or at least knowing that eventually I would have [some] answers - to the questions my friends, family and the general public ask me.
The longer it's been since I practised medicine the more I forget, and I'm not replenishing the source, either. That is sad. It also takes a toll on my confidence in my medical knowledge. The one skill I won't forget, though, is how to look things up! That's my saving grace. I do hope I’ll find a way to incorporate medicine into something I do in future. Ideally, something that would require me to have an understanding of the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of common complaints!
Whenever I start questioning my decision to leave or when I’m really missing medicine and start to wonder if I should give it another go, I revisit the list of reasons why I left and I’m usually quickly reassured. In today's post, I'm going to pick out a few more of these reasons - or pebbles - to share with you. These pebbles are the ones that get lodged in the treads of the soles of your shoes. The ones you convince yourself are only temporary and will fall out if you just keep on walking - but they don't, and you eventually have to just stop and pick them out. But once they're out… Oh, the relief! These reasons for leaving are precisely THOSE pebbles.
Let me begin with the working conditions in an HSE hospital. Put simply, our basic needs are barely met.
I was lucky in Portiuncula Hospital (PUH) - we were provided with lockers. However, we did have to request that they be divided between male and female locker rooms so we would have somewhere to change before and after work. *facepalm*
In Galway University Hospital (GUH), lockers were a rare commodity. Most of us just had to stuff our things in random free spaces on the wards. Then we would endure an almost daily lecture on health and safety in the workplace. Yes, bags and coats on the floor are a tripping hazard - but the space between the filing cabinet and the cubby hole for patient files, was taken! If you came back at the end of the day to your bag and your coat present and intact, as opposed to trod on or nowhere to be found, that was a win.
Seating in GUH was scarce. At the height of the pandemic, the tables and chairs in the foyer by the shop and the café were removed to prevent staff from congregating. What resulted were tired, hungry, burnt-out junior doctors having their teas, coffees and sandwiches on the floor of the foyer, instead. Sometimes we wandered around the hospital looking for hidden conference rooms, where we might find an actual table with actual chairs so we could sit and eat our meals like people. We didn’t always have time for such a quest, so the cold floor of the foyer had to do.
The doctors’ res in GUH was in a separate building. The res was fine. It looked like it was never cleaned and it had a growing pile of broken furniture in the corner of the room, but it was a warm space with seating. Being on the west coast of Ireland, we’d often have to walk through lashing rain and cold winds to reach the res, but the real inconvenience was the distance from the wards. When your bleep is going off constantly and you need to find time to eat and drink water, you just need a place nearby to pop into, at least for a moment, to catch your breath and rehydrate. These little sanctuaries do exist in every ward. They have tables and chairs, a kettle, a fridge and a microwave - but doctors are not welcome there. They are the nurse’s staff rooms. Technically, doctors are allowed to use them, but we’re not told where they are, we’re not invited in and sometimes we’re incorrectly told we’re not permitted in.
Water fountains and bathrooms were elusive creatures in PUH. There was one female and one male public bathroom in the foyer of the main building. I can’t speak for the men’s bathroom, but there was a single stall in the female bathroom for the whole main building of the hospital. There may have been staff toilets somewhere on the wards, perhaps even in the staff rooms, but I wouldn’t know…
But don’t fear! This is all being addressed. The Department of Health have allocated €1 million to “improve working conditions by providing doctors with places to lock their bicycles and somewhere to put your wallet, somewhere to hang your coat, the ability to get food and water at night if you’re doing an overnight shift” (Wilson, 2022). As if we needed to go to the Minister for Health to get a few coat hooks! In any case, it’s appreciated.
I planned on sharing one more pebble in this post, but I think it’s long enough. I’ll leave it for another time.
Please, feel free to let off some steam and share your own anecdotes in the comments below. We might get a giggle out of it!
Happy New Year!
Wilson, C. (2022) '80 hours a week' - why doctors are leaving Ireland, RTE.ie. RTÉ. Available at: https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2022/1013/1329100-80-hours-a-week-why-doctors-are-leaving-ireland/ (Accessed: January 16, 2023).
