This post originally titled, Waving the White Flag. (It’s Kleenex).

Where to start with Paediatrics? The current headlining scandal? The mind-numbing, soul-crushing duties? The prickly staff? The demanding work days? How about all of it, all at once, the way it is in real life. Nothing about this rotation happens in an orderly fashion. One time our senior registrar scolded us for not completing discharge summaries on time, saying “they are just as much a priority as dealing with procedures for patients on the ward and from clinic and giving medications”. If it’s one thing Paeds has taught me, it’s that everything can be a priority, all at the same time.

But all this non-stop action has succeeded in murdering my already feeble immune system so that I am now sick. With the flu. Probably. Or tuberculosis. Probably (not). If you know anything about me, it should be that I do not handle illness well. I handle it like a boy, really. Which is probably sexist to say but we all know it’s true. Boys are complete babies when they get sick. And so am I. I curl up in the foetal position and demand soup in a voice that sounds like death colded over*. I am utterly useless at anything involving physical, mental or emotional energy and I sometimes fantasise about using telekinesis instead of getting up to retrieve my phone from the counter five feet away.

Going to work today was entirely out of the question, so I used my leftover energy to feel guilty about calling in sick. I know what a Paediatric work day is like. I also know that I have duty tomorrow and I had to make the decision to take today off so that I could have some reserve of energy with which to survive that 36 hour beat.

This is what a Paediatric work day is like for me:

Starts at 8AM (unlike Surgery which would start at 6:30-7 because the earlier you arrive, the earlier you leave. On paeds you leave late no matter what). At 8AM you see patients on the ward until ward rounds start at about 9:30.

Ward rounds end at about 11AM when you start the day’s procedures which include taking blood, collecting urine samples and sending patients for investigations (like xrays etc). This is for patients admitted on the ward, as well as patients here for the day for a review or patients sent up from clinic.

All intravenous medications are administered by the interns, on a strict schedule. Medication also has to be ordered daily from the pharmacy because they don’t send up more than one day’s supply. This means writing up several charts and getting your senior house officers (SHOs) to sign them because your signatures carry no weight.

Then there is other paperwork like writing discharge summaries and prescriptions for the patients leaving. And there is following up of lab results, mostly cultures from microbiology, that require one of you to go into the lab for about an hour to write down results from the 3-4 books that serve as records.

All this takes you until well into the afternoon and suddenly it’s 3PM and you haven’t stopped for lunch. You just gave the 2PM medication but you can’t eat yet because this baby needs an intravenous access (a ‘drip’) and another baby just got admitted from Accident and Emergency (A&E) needing blood and urine cultures.

There are three of you working but it doesn’t seem like enough. The SHOs will ask “Are you the only one doing procedures? Where’s Dr. So-and-So?” and you will calmly explain that Dr. So-and-So is giving medication while Dr. What’s-Her-Face is in A&E seeing referrals and there’s no one left to help you and they will press their lips together and give you a look which you’re pretty sure does NOT mean “That sounds rough, I’ll help you” and instead means “Well. You’re just gonna have to get your shit together” and you move on with your day. Breathe and move forward should be the mantra of Paediatrics.

After you finish procedures, following up the regular lab results for the samples you took off in the day can take you beyond 4PM because some result always comes back abnormal and needs to be acted on. I don’t like to leave that kind of work on the duty intern because duties are rough enough without adding work that’s carried over from in the day. So I never end up leaving before 6PM and usually leave around 8PM.

I’m not going to get into my eating habits because my aunt reads this blog and would probably have a conniption but suffice to say I would not turn down the offer of a live in chef. Or maid. Or professional masseuse. Or all three in one so I’d only have one monthly fee. Am I setting the bar too high?

Fuck it. The bar was high before I even got here. This whole time I’ve been trying to brush it with my fingers, on tiptoe, stretching furiously toward some untouchable standard. Today I got to rest my aching body/mind/soul for a teensy bit. Tomorrow it’s back to the rack.

Flecti non frangi.

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(*Because death warmed over sounds a little too pleasant. Like Death already got soup and a blankie and now he’s pleased as punch. Although I have been told that my sick voice sounds very sultry so maybe my voice actually is warmed over).