Thursday, September 25, 2008

Threatened Insanity

I think, one of my biggest fault is that I tend to speak before I weigh the pros and cons of what I am going to say. That, on top of my temper, is just a recipe for disaster.

Once a month, my oncall will be a 'jonah' one. I suppose I should be thankful that I'm not 'jonah' all the time, yes?

Last night was one of those. Cases keep trickling in till 3 am. When I have settled that, the labour room would be calling. It was one of those days when the cases aren't severely ill but warrants a careful review nonetheless.

One of the things that irks me the most is non emergency cases coming at ridiculous hours of the night. Take the case of menorrhagia who came in at 2 am last night. I had just returned to the casualty at 3 am after referring a case from the labour room for suspicious CTG and was looking forward to some shut eye. I asked my nurse why the patient in bed 2 had come in for? Imagine my dismay when she told me that she came in complaining of PV (per vaginal) bleeding since EIGHT days ago. The worst thing is, she has had this happen several times before and is undergoing follow up with the Gynae clinic.

Many a times I have chided my patients for keeping their diabetic foot for weeks before turning up at the casualty on a weekend and almost always near midnight. Or the case of end stage renal failure who would always default her appointment for readmission to ward and turn up severely short of breath due to the extra fluid in her lungs. Not to mention pakciks with swollen scrotum who had ignored his appointment to see the surgeon because he 'felt well' and turn up with abdominal pain and vomiting.

Sigh.

It is now half six in the morning and I am not looking forward to working without any sleep for the past 24 hours. But tis life and it shall go on. Ho hum.

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