Off Day Thoughts

Yes, this exists even for taggers. But this may depend on the hospital because I have a friend who claims she doesn't get off days during the entire tagging period.

There are busy days, and there are slow (relaxing!) days.

I learned a lot in the past 4 days of tagging in an SCN/NICU:

1. You do not disturb the nurses when they have passovers to conduct, but they can very well disturb you during your am review, pm review and procedures to imply that you're being rather incompetent
2. A lot of nurses are very helpful despite their loudness
3. Your competency during your clinical years in medical school doesn't hold a candle to how your working days will be.
4. Remember when you were surprised at how messy and unorganized and incomplete the histories are for patients in the BHTs you read? YOU WILL DO IT TOO because you're simply pressed for time!
5. The success for blood-taking is 70% in your head, 30% skill. 40% what you learn from your senior HOs.
6. Your MOs are a blessing when they cover for you while the specialist asks questions you do not know the answer to. And these MOs may appear to be the stricter ones
7. My MOs are so good at blood-taking, they must have x-ray vision, but not limited to visualizing bones and soft tissues only.
8. It's actually easier to take blood from a neonate than a child, or even a grown-up... Most of the time
9. The useless feeling I get when I fail at blood-taking but my seniors do it in one simple go-
10. The helplessness I feel when the MO says something like 'Take blood C&S', 'TSB level QID', 'Prolonged jaundice workup' and 'Start IV C-Pen and Genta for this patient' because it means poking the babies!
11. Other than during a procedure, one of the worst moments in a day is when you have to wake up and get prepared to go to the hospital for another brand new day.
12. But when your patient recovers, you feel super happy
13. And when they come back after being discharged, you wonder if it's in any way your fault
14. Tedious things like writing discharge summaries take up time!
15. Learning to ignore negative reactions to you will be your best shield when your knowledge and competency is not up to par yet. And keep on trying and practicing because it will contribute to your future.
16. During tagging, you are expected to be functional- but your mistakes will be forgiven, especially when you're a first poster.

Et cetera.

But this is my first off day after a series of actual working days.

So I'm gonna rest and not think about hospital life too much.

And just FYI, I'm not exactly miserable during tagging periods. Sometimes it's actually really fun and makes me feel like dragging my butt off my bed in the morning was totally worth it. When it's totally horrible and suddenly the entire ward is in chaos, I reserve some of my thoughts to some of my favourite things, ala The Sound of Music. And always remember that the storm will pass, and there are people who can help me no matter how dire the situation feels at that moment.

Like now, I am just chilling in bed. The storm has passed.

Until tomorrow comes.

Then I won't be chilling anymore. But it's okay, chill days will come and experiences occur. And good deeds will never go to waste. :)

Kay bye need to do more chilling!