What is a bad day for you, Doctor?

j.mcdrmd

"Well a bad day has possibly got to be...when... it's just so busy that you can't give your time to each Patient..... when you are so pressed.... that you just have to be moving on to the next Patient."

Loose quote from The Late Late Show.

Is that not what most Doctors in Ireland face everyday?

Why are consultant Doctors standing over that?

Nonoperational

Realistically, for the medical specialities anyway, it's peaks and troughs around take. Some days/weeks are so busy it's unmanageable.

Abby19

24 hour call when you quite literally do not get a wink of sleep!

dermabrasion

j.mcdrmd wrote: »

"Well a bad day has possibly got to be...when... it's just so busy that you can't give your time to each Patient..... when you are so pressed.... that you just have to be moving on to the next Patient."

Loose quote from The Late Late Show.

Is that not what most Doctors in Ireland face everyday?

Why are consultant Doctors standing over that?

I'm a Consultant in a specialty where it is difficult to delegate to NCHDs because of complexity. I did a 50hrs scheduled as part of my normal working week. I am on call 4 nights this week (72hours straight this weekend). On-call from Wednesday from 5pm where I left the hospital at 01:30 Thursday, back in at 07:30 Thursday. Friday in at 07:30, back home at 23:30, back in Saturday at 08:30-17:30 and now its Sunday 08:00 and I have done ~72hrs this week at work, and I have 7 emergency operations lined up today and an ICU to manage. I think this is nonsense, but I am powerless to change this as there is no-one else to do this work, and we couldn't hire them even if we had the money. NCHDs look at the way me and my colleagues work, and think 'not doing that mate'.

Pugzilla

Why is a surgeon managing the ICU?

Aren't the anaesthetists supposed to do that?

Dingle_berry

Pugzilla wrote: »

Why is a surgeon managing the ICU?

Aren't the anaesthetists supposed to do that?

Anaesthetists tend to anaesthetise patients in surgery as well as manage the ICU...

Pugzilla

Dingle_berry wrote: »

Anaesthetists tend to anaesthetise patients in surgery as well as manage the ICU...

Read into the post wrong. Presumed the poster was a surgeon when he mentioned emergency surgeries. It's usually surgeons that are complaining about their lifestyle.

Anaesthetists generally have it relatively easy in comparison. Atleast they get a chair to sit on, do some crosswords and go for coffee breaks.

neemish

Pugzilla wrote: »

Read into the post wrong. Presumed the poster was a surgeon when he mentioned emergency surgeries. It's usually surgeons that are complaining about their lifestyle.

Anaesthetists generally have it relatively easy in comparison. Atleast they get a chair to sit on, do some crosswords and go for coffee breaks.

I hope you never give me an anaesthetic!! Incredibly complicated job from assessing patient, to calculating correct dosage, monitoring vitals, adjusting dosage accordingly, pain management afterwards. I would not like to think of my anaesthetist asking about 24 across in the middle of surgery!!

Dingle_berry

Pugzilla wrote: »

Read into the post wrong. Presumed the poster was a surgeon when he mentioned emergency surgeries. It's usually surgeons that are complaining about their lifestyle.

Anaesthetists generally have it relatively easy in comparison. Atleast they get a chair to sit on, do some crosswords and go for coffee breaks.

What's that saying about far away hills appearing greener?

Pugzilla

neemish wrote: »

I hope you never give me an anaesthetic!! Incredibly complicated job from assessing patient, to calculating correct dosage, monitoring vitals, adjusting dosage accordingly, pain management afterwards. I would not like to think of my anaesthetist asking about 24 across in the middle of surgery!!

I'm not a lay person. I'm in medicine myself. I know well what they do.

It's got a decent lifestyle for a hospital specialty. One of the reasons it's a popular career choice at the monent. Getting on the training scheme is more competitive now.

Arbie

Neurosurgeons and CT surgeons spend a chunk of time managing patients in ICU.

In my experience, anaesthetists keep the show on the road; most importantly, they swoop in to reassure everyone when those blinking numbers drop and that dread machine goes BONGBONG halfway through an elective procedure. They make it look easy because they're really good at it.

I would love to see how each specialty ranks other specialties in terms of lifestyle, workload, etc. I'd say there would be some entertaining disagreement.

PMBC

Dingle_berry wrote: »

Anaesthetists tend to anaesthetise patients in surgery as well as manage the ICU...

Dear Dingleberry - I shared digs with final med in UCG when it was UCG and they used that name for anal faecal hair-balls. Was very funny then. Am I correct?

Pugzilla

Majority of the anaesthesia services in the US are provided by nurses. What does that say?

newwan

Pugzilla wrote: »

I'm not a lay person. I'm in medicine myself. I know well what they do.

It's got a decent lifestyle for a hospital specialty. One of the reasons it's a popular career choice at the monent. Getting on the training scheme is more competitive now.

Its ok in ireland. Mainly because we control the icu. But its also bad because we control the icu if you umderstand me.

And whoever thinks we do nothing really has no clue. Any time i go to medical grand rounds i see scores of physicians swilling coffee and arguing over fecking clinical manifestations of sarcoid for an hour or more... I got an hour lunch break there a few years ago. Id say ill never forget it.

On call we are always in house and always there when the shot hits the fan. Unlike the physician or paeds or phsych or derm etc. Even surgeons might only have to come in every second or third call.

I love it to bits but they need to double the number of anaesthetics/intensivists in the next few years cause there no way im going to stay here and do on call fri sat sun 72 hours in an irish unit when im 50... No way in hell. If they dont fix the contract asap and hire way more its a one way ticket for me and half my class...

And you know something that will be a terrible shame because the irish scheme is just about best in world right now. North amaerica is too short and theie graduates are dangerous. Oz is class but lacks a special intestest. If the hse lose the current crops they should all be sacked

JohnBee

Pugzilla wrote: »

Majority of the anaesthesia services in the US are provided by nurses. What does that say?

It says that you know very little about anesthesia, and even less about anesthesia nurse practitioners.

dermabrasion

Pugzilla wrote: »

Majority of the anaesthesia services in the US are provided by nurses. What does that say?

If you carry that type of opinion with you into your career, I think you will suffer. Assuming you are not trolling, that statement conveys a galactic lack of understanding or insight. Until you walk in another doctors shoes, you cannot appreciate the challenges of a given specialty. Anaesthetists train for 5-7 years, depending on the area of specialisation. That alone indicates your statement is uninformed.