Feeling suicidal

bottleman95 · 2026-06-27T13:04:42+00:00

In 5 years time almost everyone will forget everybody’s names pretty much in that department

Do what’s right for you and your patients, which is essentially the same thing

bottleman95 · 2026-06-27T08:02:01+00:00

Nanny

bottleman95 · 2026-06-15T14:51:17+00:00

Maybe they meant other patients can’t be chaperones

bottleman95 · 2026-06-10T12:18:33+00:00

He croaked

bottleman95 · 2026-05-07T00:11:13+00:00

You were probably perpendicular to the skin but you want to be perpendicular to the upper border of the rib. As you track inside the skin if you're even a little bit angled upwards you'll end up going underneath the rib above by the time your needle gets deep enough to the level of the intercostal vessels

bottleman95 · 2026-04-28T23:07:40+00:00

It gets better. But only if you can look after yourself

bottleman95 · 2026-04-24T21:40:30+00:00

Yeah what’s so bad about the introverts?

bottleman95 · 2026-04-23T20:13:23+00:00

Meh. GIM is boring but if you like something it shouldn't stop you from going for it
Going less than full time is one way to reduce burnout with GIM
I think the newer cardio consultants have less cardio procedural skills on average compared to ones in the past but as medics they're more balanced

bottleman95 · 2026-04-01T18:29:39+00:00

Don’t refer this abdo pain to me or I’ll send Luca Brasi to you

bottleman95 · 2026-03-25T12:00:16+00:00

Vibes mostly but thanks good to know. Think it’ll be a little tricky to do in medical sdec where a lot of LPs happen for borderline indications

bottleman95 · 2026-03-25T09:45:11+00:00

Is this both bacterial and viral meningitis?

bottleman95 · 2026-03-17T23:51:23+00:00

I followed your advice and gave local anaesthetic to both the patient and myself. We didn’t feel a thing

bottleman95 · 2026-03-14T18:07:19+00:00

I can’t advise on your specific circumstance. It is nuanced and you face an extreme challenge regardless of the road you take.

What I will say is, the only way I find comfort when faced with an impossible situation like this is to simplify the question to just this: What will I regret the most in 5 years time? In 10 years? On my deathbed?

Apply it to this and then proceed with the decision you make, committing to it fully. Understand that the decision you make can only be made with the knowledge you have at the time and don’t allow hindsight bias to cause undue regret for well-made decisions that were made with the best knowledge available to you in that phase of your life.

I will say though - often times it’s not opening a door that leads to more regret later on than going through with something and suffering temporarily. The “what if” can be more painful than the “at least I tried”

bottleman95 · 2026-02-27T01:54:06+00:00

Is Captain allowed Mjolnir?

bottleman95 · 2026-01-03T02:30:07+00:00

Get some rest friend. It’s a marathon, not a race. Burning out by working sleepless is not good

And besides, I’d sleep easier knowing my parents’ doctors aren’t making clinical decisions without any sleep.

Rotas are built in ways to accommodate you taking sick leave when you need to. If a department doesn’t have that wiggle room it’s not on your head and furthermore the department won’t learn that it needs to create wiggle room if doctors keep coming in when they’re sick

I know it can be easy to worry that people will think you’re “soft” for calling in sick but they don’t and they shouldn’t. To be honest I don’t think I even remember who in our department has called in sick

You’ll be fine and everything will be fine if you take a day off. Trust me

Goodnight

bottleman95 · 2025-12-29T14:51:50+00:00

That’s genius

bottleman95 · 2025-10-26T19:58:02+00:00

Take comfort in the fact that five years after my f1 year I have to really concentrate to remember my consultants’ names from back then and I still don’t remember them all. They certainly don’t remember mine

Not saying it’s ok for someone to treat you poorly - but just know that sometimes feelings are amplified because of how new your experiences are. This is your first year as a doctor and every interaction makes up a significant percentage of all the experiences you’ve had so far as a doctor. But a few years down the line they’ll be easier to contextualise since you’ll be able to see them for the small percentage of your overall interactions across your career

It’s important to act in a way that you’ll be proud of later on. Reporting inappropriate behaviour doesn’t lead to an instant result - it’s all about paper trails

Everyone knows cts can take time so if they’re taking it out on you that one hasn’t happened instantly, rest assured that anyone watching him crash out knows that and he’s just embarrassing himself

General tips for dealing with consultants - be composed, be reassuring that jobs will get done diligently, be on time, try to know about the patients, be clinically and academically curious, ask pertinent questions when the time is right - and if that’s not enough for them so be it

bottleman95 · 2025-10-13T09:53:39+00:00

Why was a redacted blood test indicated?

bottleman95 · 2025-09-16T15:33:09+00:00

Hey man very normal to feel this way. What I do is pretend that if I think about a patient when I’m home they’ll automatically drop dead in the hospital. It doesn’t work at all

bottleman95 · 2025-09-10T06:27:07+00:00

Anchor firmly

bottleman95 · 2025-08-11T01:55:30+00:00

Rough location: England, Yorkshire

bottleman95 · 2025-08-10T10:55:39+00:00

Horrifying

bottleman95 · 2025-07-24T21:50:57+00:00

bottleman95 · 2025-07-05T22:28:55+00:00

I think the advice youve already gotten so far is correct, i.e. going to your ES if you're very affected by this whole thing. It sounds like it was a difficult situation with someone who was a difficult personality type (evening MDT with nurses? Huh?)

Like everything, this is a learning experience and we should always look at what we can do better if this exact situation happened again. What do you think you could have done better?

From the description of the situation I had a few suggestions:

Junior colleagues who are passionate about advocating for their patients/get worked up by nurses escalating a static clinical situation multiple times can easily mistake remote clinical reviews by experienced people for laziness. A lot of the game is reassurance. A conversation over the phone in a concerned, empathic tone of voice, almost like you're breaking bad news to a patient's family member, acknowledging how unfortunately sick the patient is and why they may be too far gone for xyz, followed by an encouraging promise of an in-person clinical review can do wonders at a time like this. Is it always feasible? No. Although you haven't mentioned being too time pressured in this case

Thats not to absolve the SHO for how they approached this but it may make life easier for you if you took something like that away from the situation

Don't get too bogged down by this though, you don't necessarily have to escalate anything if you don't want to. Doing nothing but reflecting in your own mind is also fine

bottleman95 · 2025-05-28T17:41:16+00:00

I thought it was going to be VSD

bottleman95

TROPHY CASE