Author's Note :
This article was originally posted on my Facebook in May 2013 and received overwhelming response :) So I am reposting it here in my blog.
I have never liked O&G. I still don’t and I never will.
My hatred for this O&G posting has been implanted in me ever since in medical school. Nothing to do with bosses…..it is mainly because of the stressful environment surrounding the posting. Why not- O&G involves not one but two lives at stake for each patient. So everything has to be more strict- from the rules and regulations, the procedures needed to pass the posting. And everything about this posting is so fast paced. A woman can bleed out an entire litre of blood in just a few minutes if nothing is being done about it. And it’s scary.
So when I found out that I was going to O&G posting after Ortho…..my initial reaction was ‘OMG….I am going to O&G….’
Then it was followed by the feeling of fear and anxiety and nervousness and trepidation.
Me and O&G never really got along….and I suspected we never will. I recall many tears being shed whenever I go through O&G posting in medical school, and it is just going to get worse as I actually start working.
So yeah I entered this posting just praying to God that I will come out of it alive. And I am only half joking. Before even stepping my small feet into the department, I have heard many stories about the department. How they have the fiercest bosses of all departments, how it is the most stressful and worst department ever, how it has the highest extension rate of all. I heard about the suicide stories, I heard about the horror that are the 3 Js…I have heard it all. And I have heard how this posting is like hell literally. And I was warned from the very beginning…..that you will get screamed at every single second every single day…..for at least the first month of the posting.
It turned out to be mostly true….but at least I was prepared. I did get yelled at by every single boss, especially for the first month. Labour ward is equivalent to hell, ok maybe not hell literally, but 100x worse than a fish market.
I do recall many moments especially during tagging when I wanted to just break down and cry. I recall going back at 1 am in the morning during my day tag because the MO wouldn’t let the patient be admitted to the ward until a proper CTG tracing was obtained. I recall the same MO asking me ‘Are you on drugs or are you just simply tired?’ I recall getting kicked out of the ward right on my first day in the ward. I recall an MO throwing my clerking sheet right into my face. You are being made to feel like crap literally.
And I really missed Ortho posting.
Things did get better during the second month when I got to maternity ward. But it is still stressful nonetheless. Only two HOs per ward, so you have to come super early every morning if you are to finish reviewing every single patient. And bosses do expect you to know every single patient.
Although I prefer the maternity 2 ward better, the maternity 2 ward calls were the worst. Whenever I am on call in maternity 2, everything would go wrong. CTGs would go suspicious. Placenta praevia patients would bleed. PIH patients would have persistently high BP. Preterm patient would go into preterm labour. And at least 4-5 patients would need post Caesar reviews. And everytime I was on call in maternity 2 ward- at least a quarter of the ward would be transferred down to Labour Ward.
Gynae Ward was surprisingly good. Bosses and colleagues were nice, calls were better.
But then came the final month, and with it came the struggle for procedures. So many things to do….MRPs, ERPOCs, salphingectomy, BTLs, closing and of course the skin to skin.
I honestly don’t know how I was going to accomplish all these.
You see, I am born with a genetic condition called Turner’s Syndrome. The well known facts about it is that you have a short stature and can’t have kids of your own. What nobody knows is how it causes you to have a non-verbal learning disability in which your brain and your arms and legs fail to coordinate properly, causing you to have a delayed response and seem very slow and clumsy. What they don’t tell you is how you do NOT learn but simply observing like others do- as the attention deficit disorder that comes with this- causes you to be unable to pick up the finer details of any procedure you are supposed to learn. What they don’t tell you is that the only way you learn is by actually having someone who is patient enough to guide you through a procedure step by step and letting you practice the same thing over and over again. (And O&G bosses are the least patient of them all, as to be expected).
So nobody can imagine the struggle I had to go through. Every single procedure involves great effort in my part, from diluting antibiotics, to tying my apron, to scrubbing to wearing gloves…. I just can’t seem to do anything properly no matter how hard I try and how many times I do it. And every single boss I assist will ask me the same thing ‘ Is it the first time you are in the OT?’ I don’t know how to answer them, I really don’t. A normal slow person would actually pick all these things up after a few times in the OT. But not me. This is not normal anymore, this is PATHOLOGICAL.
And as you can imagine- if I can’t even do basic things properly- how will any boss ever let me do any single procedure?
I went through an entire month of feeling hopeless because of this. I tried as many passives as I could. I stayed back after every call to camp for procedures, as somehow I just can’t seem to get my procedures during my passives. I practiced hand tie and suturing at home every night. But it just didn’t help. I would just stumble and fall again when the time comes.
I cried after every passive call. I never felt this hopeless and helpless and ridiculous before in my whole life. I asked God whether He will ever get me out of this if He let me into this. Anyways His promise was that He will never give us more than we can handle. The worst thing of it all was that quitting or taking my life wasn’t even an option. So you can imagine how hopeless I felt. AT one point I was wondering whether I would ever get out of the posting. All the while a small voice inside me said ‘Yes, you will’ But I refused to believe it.
I can now safely say that the one and only thing that got me through this posting is God’s Grace.
He gave me sufficient Grace I needed to get through each day of the posting. Everyday I would wake up at 3:30 am in the morning wondering why I have to go through another day of this. But then He gave me the strength I needed to sustain me through the whole day, to speak to my patients, colleagues and bosses. He gave me the strength to smile at them when all I wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and cry.
And He gave me guardian Angels, as one of my MOs calls them. Some wonderful colleagues and bosses who actually supported me through my ordeal…without you I wouldn’t have gone through this…you know who you are : ) I really thank God from the bottom of my heart for all of you.
So as I reach the end of this posting and I reflect back….I can say that it was a good experience. Definitely NOT an experience that I would want to relive, but a good experience nonetheless. I will in a weird way actually miss some aspects of this posting. I will miss the sound of CTGs running. I will miss the screams of the women in labour. I will miss the screams of ‘ Room 8 – Caesar!! Room 4- vacuum!! Room 12 – os full!!’
I will miss the patients, they are the sweetest group of patients you’ll ever met. And bosses- they actually turned out to be not bad after all.
But the one thing that this posting taught me is – what I am definitely NOT good at…. So at least I know that once I get housemanship over and done with…..I will not be applying to any surgical based postings, or district postings or any postings related to procedures of any sorts. Just give me anything less stressful like admin, public health, pathology, psychiatry, anything that actually involves my strengths (because I am sure that God actually gives me strengths).. then I will be a happy person.
As I step foot into Paeds posting soon, I will be saying the same thing ‘ I miss O&G!!/ And the cycle goes on…
My hatred for this O&G posting has been implanted in me ever since in medical school. Nothing to do with bosses…..it is mainly because of the stressful environment surrounding the posting. Why not- O&G involves not one but two lives at stake for each patient. So everything has to be more strict- from the rules and regulations, the procedures needed to pass the posting. And everything about this posting is so fast paced. A woman can bleed out an entire litre of blood in just a few minutes if nothing is being done about it. And it’s scary.
So when I found out that I was going to O&G posting after Ortho…..my initial reaction was ‘OMG….I am going to O&G….’
Then it was followed by the feeling of fear and anxiety and nervousness and trepidation.
Me and O&G never really got along….and I suspected we never will. I recall many tears being shed whenever I go through O&G posting in medical school, and it is just going to get worse as I actually start working.
So yeah I entered this posting just praying to God that I will come out of it alive. And I am only half joking. Before even stepping my small feet into the department, I have heard many stories about the department. How they have the fiercest bosses of all departments, how it is the most stressful and worst department ever, how it has the highest extension rate of all. I heard about the suicide stories, I heard about the horror that are the 3 Js…I have heard it all. And I have heard how this posting is like hell literally. And I was warned from the very beginning…..that you will get screamed at every single second every single day…..for at least the first month of the posting.
It turned out to be mostly true….but at least I was prepared. I did get yelled at by every single boss, especially for the first month. Labour ward is equivalent to hell, ok maybe not hell literally, but 100x worse than a fish market.
I do recall many moments especially during tagging when I wanted to just break down and cry. I recall going back at 1 am in the morning during my day tag because the MO wouldn’t let the patient be admitted to the ward until a proper CTG tracing was obtained. I recall the same MO asking me ‘Are you on drugs or are you just simply tired?’ I recall getting kicked out of the ward right on my first day in the ward. I recall an MO throwing my clerking sheet right into my face. You are being made to feel like crap literally.
And I really missed Ortho posting.
Things did get better during the second month when I got to maternity ward. But it is still stressful nonetheless. Only two HOs per ward, so you have to come super early every morning if you are to finish reviewing every single patient. And bosses do expect you to know every single patient.
Although I prefer the maternity 2 ward better, the maternity 2 ward calls were the worst. Whenever I am on call in maternity 2, everything would go wrong. CTGs would go suspicious. Placenta praevia patients would bleed. PIH patients would have persistently high BP. Preterm patient would go into preterm labour. And at least 4-5 patients would need post Caesar reviews. And everytime I was on call in maternity 2 ward- at least a quarter of the ward would be transferred down to Labour Ward.
Gynae Ward was surprisingly good. Bosses and colleagues were nice, calls were better.
But then came the final month, and with it came the struggle for procedures. So many things to do….MRPs, ERPOCs, salphingectomy, BTLs, closing and of course the skin to skin.
I honestly don’t know how I was going to accomplish all these.
You see, I am born with a genetic condition called Turner’s Syndrome. The well known facts about it is that you have a short stature and can’t have kids of your own. What nobody knows is how it causes you to have a non-verbal learning disability in which your brain and your arms and legs fail to coordinate properly, causing you to have a delayed response and seem very slow and clumsy. What they don’t tell you is how you do NOT learn but simply observing like others do- as the attention deficit disorder that comes with this- causes you to be unable to pick up the finer details of any procedure you are supposed to learn. What they don’t tell you is that the only way you learn is by actually having someone who is patient enough to guide you through a procedure step by step and letting you practice the same thing over and over again. (And O&G bosses are the least patient of them all, as to be expected).
So nobody can imagine the struggle I had to go through. Every single procedure involves great effort in my part, from diluting antibiotics, to tying my apron, to scrubbing to wearing gloves…. I just can’t seem to do anything properly no matter how hard I try and how many times I do it. And every single boss I assist will ask me the same thing ‘ Is it the first time you are in the OT?’ I don’t know how to answer them, I really don’t. A normal slow person would actually pick all these things up after a few times in the OT. But not me. This is not normal anymore, this is PATHOLOGICAL.
And as you can imagine- if I can’t even do basic things properly- how will any boss ever let me do any single procedure?
I went through an entire month of feeling hopeless because of this. I tried as many passives as I could. I stayed back after every call to camp for procedures, as somehow I just can’t seem to get my procedures during my passives. I practiced hand tie and suturing at home every night. But it just didn’t help. I would just stumble and fall again when the time comes.
I cried after every passive call. I never felt this hopeless and helpless and ridiculous before in my whole life. I asked God whether He will ever get me out of this if He let me into this. Anyways His promise was that He will never give us more than we can handle. The worst thing of it all was that quitting or taking my life wasn’t even an option. So you can imagine how hopeless I felt. AT one point I was wondering whether I would ever get out of the posting. All the while a small voice inside me said ‘Yes, you will’ But I refused to believe it.
I can now safely say that the one and only thing that got me through this posting is God’s Grace.
He gave me sufficient Grace I needed to get through each day of the posting. Everyday I would wake up at 3:30 am in the morning wondering why I have to go through another day of this. But then He gave me the strength I needed to sustain me through the whole day, to speak to my patients, colleagues and bosses. He gave me the strength to smile at them when all I wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and cry.
And He gave me guardian Angels, as one of my MOs calls them. Some wonderful colleagues and bosses who actually supported me through my ordeal…without you I wouldn’t have gone through this…you know who you are : ) I really thank God from the bottom of my heart for all of you.
So as I reach the end of this posting and I reflect back….I can say that it was a good experience. Definitely NOT an experience that I would want to relive, but a good experience nonetheless. I will in a weird way actually miss some aspects of this posting. I will miss the sound of CTGs running. I will miss the screams of the women in labour. I will miss the screams of ‘ Room 8 – Caesar!! Room 4- vacuum!! Room 12 – os full!!’
I will miss the patients, they are the sweetest group of patients you’ll ever met. And bosses- they actually turned out to be not bad after all.
But the one thing that this posting taught me is – what I am definitely NOT good at…. So at least I know that once I get housemanship over and done with…..I will not be applying to any surgical based postings, or district postings or any postings related to procedures of any sorts. Just give me anything less stressful like admin, public health, pathology, psychiatry, anything that actually involves my strengths (because I am sure that God actually gives me strengths).. then I will be a happy person.
As I step foot into Paeds posting soon, I will be saying the same thing ‘ I miss O&G!!/ And the cycle goes on…
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