Saturday, July 30, 2005
An interesting week in the smoke
After having come up trumps in actually fulfilling a "voucher" we gave to Anna's brother - to decorate a room of their choice - for their wedding present. I had a rather eventfull week at my job in London.
Eventful? Well a lovely West Indian lady called in looking the doctor about 1 hour before he was due to take his afternoon surgery. She didn't have an appointment and was complaining of a trivial problem, but luckily I got the vibe and didn't try to put her off or make her book an appointment. A few minutes after the doctor arrived I was holding the lady's hand taking her pulse and waiting for an ambulance to take her to A&E, scary stuff to be honest, it would have been so easy to dismiss her stated problem and have a dead person on your hands. It is pretty difficult to cope with people who think they are a burden, when they obviously aren't in the slightest & those people who insist on an obviously trivial ailment being the worst thing in the world and requiring immediate treatment.
An attempted suicide, with details from a hospital ward, absconding from the ward after pumping their stomach and the subsequent hunt to ensure the person was okay and not going to hurt themselves.
I could mention lots of other things, but the less said the better (I've read how bloggers can lose their jobs by talking about their working lives)
I've been working hard this week and even managed to miss my lunch break on 2 separate days, not that I couldn't do with a good starving. I've managed to push one of the performance measurements, I need to hit from 21% to 32% in a little over one week, I need to hit 55% and 75% before I get the points and ultimately money for my GP.
I've also managed to start creating templates to the various consultants we refer our patients to, while it took a bit of time at the start, I've managed to get into the swing of things and I reckon we will be spending about 10-15 minutes less on composing each referal letter.
It is the old chicken and egg situation you don't have the time to spend changing things, but you need to spend time changing things to ensure you have enough time to start doing new things.
Eventful? Well a lovely West Indian lady called in looking the doctor about 1 hour before he was due to take his afternoon surgery. She didn't have an appointment and was complaining of a trivial problem, but luckily I got the vibe and didn't try to put her off or make her book an appointment. A few minutes after the doctor arrived I was holding the lady's hand taking her pulse and waiting for an ambulance to take her to A&E, scary stuff to be honest, it would have been so easy to dismiss her stated problem and have a dead person on your hands. It is pretty difficult to cope with people who think they are a burden, when they obviously aren't in the slightest & those people who insist on an obviously trivial ailment being the worst thing in the world and requiring immediate treatment.
An attempted suicide, with details from a hospital ward, absconding from the ward after pumping their stomach and the subsequent hunt to ensure the person was okay and not going to hurt themselves.
I could mention lots of other things, but the less said the better (I've read how bloggers can lose their jobs by talking about their working lives)
I've been working hard this week and even managed to miss my lunch break on 2 separate days, not that I couldn't do with a good starving. I've managed to push one of the performance measurements, I need to hit from 21% to 32% in a little over one week, I need to hit 55% and 75% before I get the points and ultimately money for my GP.
I've also managed to start creating templates to the various consultants we refer our patients to, while it took a bit of time at the start, I've managed to get into the swing of things and I reckon we will be spending about 10-15 minutes less on composing each referal letter.
It is the old chicken and egg situation you don't have the time to spend changing things, but you need to spend time changing things to ensure you have enough time to start doing new things.
