A difficult day

I don't think I am much suited to the work of a junior doctor. I hate working under administrators who don't know what it is like on the ground. It is so easy to redirect doctors from one team to another, no one is keeping score to check when a doctor becomes over-worked, or if one team is doing more than another because one of them isn't playing 'the game'. I try not to keep patients in hospital longer than they should stay because it isn't good for the patients and it is a waste of the health dollar, but it seems like the more efficient I am, and the more patients get churned through, the more work gets dumped on me because it appears that my workload is lighter (when the patients are no longer inpatients).

I hate working with 'hospitalists' whose job it is to help with 'difficult' patients and to try and clear bed spaces. They come to junior doctors, who have little say in a patient's management and repeatedly offer lectures on how we should listen to patients or how we shouldn't keep patients in - Mate, if you want to take the patient yourself and sort it out, feel free. Just don't let it blow back on me. Take some responsibility. They walk around the hospital telling people what to do, telling junior doctors where the work is, but not doing any themselves.

I hate working with the nurses that disrespect you because you're a new doctor. Most are great, but there are some that just ruin your day, just because they've worked longer. They think they know better because of the duration of their service - some of them do know a lot, but a lot do not. It is easy to push for decisions to be made when you don't have to sign your name at the bottom of the page.

I once had an interesting life. I once thought that if I were to die I would be satisfied. Looking back at my nine years in medicine, I have to say that is no longer the case. It feels like I have wasted nine years. I am grateful for the stability, I am grateful for the opportunity to serve the community. But I am constantly burning out, and truth be told, I could have done anything else and I would have had an easier life with better returns. I receive no sympathy from colleagues who think we should 'suck it up' (there are martyrs everywhere I suppose) or administrators and nurses who believe we earn lots of money for what we do (not at our level honey), no sympathy from the public who love the nurses much more than they love us. They don't see that the nurses have four patients and we have forty.

And of course, I don't mean for this to be read by anyone, but if anyone does read it they will say "what a whinger".

It's been a bad day. And these bad days are happening way too often.