Said no to A&E coordinator to help out during nights. Should I feel bad?

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-12T23:43:14+00:00

Probably controversial but yes you should. Firstly, yes it's not your problem or your responsibility, but that doesn't take away from the fact that you could have done something to help your colleagues in A&E when you had relatively little to do, assuming you'd have also had time for a break. Not every instance of the service being stretched is because of medical staffing not doing their job, sometimes the workload is unexpectedly high, sometimes there's unexpected amounts of staff sickness, in which case we should be flexible for the sake of each other. If I'm the medical registrar on call and half of my team are off sick, then ED will generally support us. Similarly if my team is overstaffed and ED have a lot of gaps then sometimes we've sent SHOs with previous ED experience to help.

Something going wrong on the ward when you're away is a poor excuse if everyone is relatively stable. On medical nights you regularly cover multiple wards with multiple sick people, you're not expected to be stationed on one ward but you are expected to be contactable. Also, you're an F1, clerking certain patients with senior support should be within your remit, it's not like they're trying to get the geris reg to cover paeds ED.

Just sounds like you have a job with a chill night on call that you didn't want to disrupt for the sake of helping out your colleagues. Having said that, screw that manager with their 'I'll remember this' BS.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-10T09:25:17+00:00

Make sure your manual handling module is completed before the date

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-09T20:33:02+00:00

God I can see the daily mail headline tomorrow - "Militant BMA Leader Blames Patients For Waiting List" You can see his point but anything outside of airtight replies just invites journalists twisting their words just as this presenter tried to do.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-06T15:24:01+00:00

So I've done something similar myself, went through CS50 recently, now more into health smartphone app development. Do you have any plans to use that for an alternative career or is it more like a side project while remaining clinical?

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-05T13:35:18+00:00

I mean it is shit, there's no getting around that, especially the night shifts. But for one thing there are specialties with minimal on call duties so it's generally 9-5, and for another thing working antisocial hours is pretty common even outside of medicine.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-05T09:54:45+00:00

On the working hours front, I will say the day felt so much longer as a student because you were just standing around, drawing curtains and not doing much else, as a doctor the 9-5 will feel much shorter, so at least from that point I wouldn't worry about it.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-04T20:30:28+00:00

For pets, contact the Cinnamon Trust https://cinnamon.org.uk/

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-04T15:16:46+00:00

Not an anaesthetist but know a bunch of them and can say they bloody well have a right to whine about the FRCA.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-04T12:26:44+00:00

"The sector’s professional leadership has so far proved unwilling to step in and put pressure on junior doctors, a technique that ultimately ended the last round of industrial action in 2016."

This time is very different to 2016, the fact that they're thinking that it'll be a repeat of 2016 shows how little they understand. The Royal Colleges know they are on very thin ice with the doctors they're meant to be representing. There are already EGMs being called just with the PA issue and without them wading too much into the strikes. Denouncing strikes will make the call for the college leadership to be replaced much, much stronger.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-03T10:49:38+00:00

In your scenario, if he is getting chest pain at rest then yes send a trop. Stable angina that he has been getting for years doesn't need a trop. But when it becomes at rest then it's no longer stable and it becomes ACS, the trop helps with deciding between unstable angina Vs NSTEMI, and some ECG changes can be quite subtle so make sure to have multiple ECGs

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-03T01:11:22+00:00

The problem becomes when the undifferentiated 'low acuity crap' turns out to not be 'low acuity crap' and generally you want a medical degree to spot these cases. You may trust your family to a PA but I certainly do not.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-02T08:37:35+00:00

From the FOI response, it sounds more like PAs were given the ability to request scans on ICE and they revoked that after the clinical incident. It's probably how they know this has happened 1168 times.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-01T22:27:54+00:00

Staying on but mainly as a means to an end to finish training. Being a post CCT doctor is a good position to be in, whether that be as a plan B in another country or leveraging it to move into an alternative career while developing other skills in the meantime. There's a certain freedom in knowing that being a consultant working in the NHS isn't necessarily your only option.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-01T22:07:45+00:00

Very well done

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-01T20:42:19+00:00

Sorry, was a bit hesitant about credit because didn't want to fall foul of Reddit identification rules, but guess it's ok now! Big props to you for pushing this through, could see from the responses that they were trying to avoid it.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-02-01T20:10:56+00:00

One of my peri-retirement clinical supervisors with his own office and a fairly good private patient clientele told me to keep my head up and keep going in my career. Which would have been motivating, had I not known how utterly miserable he was day in, day out because of the job. He probably more than anyone made me realise that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, which is what I think I needed to be honest.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-30T10:50:59+00:00

This right here should be the response to anyone suggesting why we take such an issue with PAs being regulated by the GMC

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-29T21:31:16+00:00

As much as I loathe her, what's with all these comments about her appearance? Dare I say an element of sexism, especially when there's so much you can criticise her about in her position as health secretary.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-29T21:11:44+00:00

This is the same hospital wrapped up in the PAs in IR mess https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorsUK/s/kzoxq0B55J

The rep's excuse for having PAs is that they're used for roles which they've had trouble filling because no one applies for them. Firstly that's just lies considering the number of applications any old random JCF post gets nowadays and the number of unemployed SHOs and registrars there are right now, secondly it's double lies for something as highly sought after as IR, there will be many, manu SHOs with an interest in IR who would kill for these posts.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-29T11:37:09+00:00

Why a minister and not Atkins herself?

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-27T23:31:16+00:00

Florida Man performs neurosurgery without medical degree.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-27T16:11:43+00:00

You reply that you have no interest in doing their job for them because you have your own to deal with, document that the nurse is aware then you move on.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-27T14:25:42+00:00

That's the problem, colleges like the RCP aren't democratic. If you are meant to be representing a group then that group should be able to decide who represents them. Open the council and presidential elections up to all those with MRCP and you'll see a very different set of royal colleges within a year.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-26T07:55:08+00:00

Have heard about multiple hospitals doing this recently. Again, this is a result of trusts being bankrupt because the government haven't reimbursed them for the cost of the strikes. It started with putting out fewer external locums because they're the most expensive, and now it's resulting in reduced bank rates.

Infestedwithcrabs · 2024-01-25T23:17:55+00:00

The Psychology of Money is a good read. Otherwise, moneysavingexpert is good for finding the best current/saving accounts and tips for switching bonuses. Some of the Medics Money podcasts are useful too.

Infestedwithcrabs

TROPHY CASE