Drs musical Chairs

Great change over day tomorrow. Stand by your nebs folks. All those lovely innocent Dr's with not a clue about the weirdness asthma will unleash on them!

Bex

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oh no!!!

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whats happening tommorrow?

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It's August the 1st...Junior Dr changeover day. At least half the junior work force will be in inductions, then in the days following will be ""new to the job"" and learning the ropes!

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I always dread the change over of doctors from a work point of view - as a nurse I spend the first couple of months despairing as they prescribe wrong doses, medicines we've never heard of and generally disprupting our usual ward routine. I never dreaded it as a patient before and had never looked at it from the patient perspective before but, having had 5 admissions this year have just realised...........!!

Apologies to those drs amongst us - I know everybody needs to learn and mean no offence

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I just cam home form hospital yesterday after 24 hours in HDU and five days on the ward. Seems I escaped in the nick of time. Will try not to have another admission for a few months so they can practice a bit first!

[yaf_user681_26410]

Anyone suffered under the new docs yet? From the other side it is definitely a relief sometimes when the docs change around in the hope of getting an improvement on the last one. But then our docs are on the GP training scheme and come to us after several placements at the DGH and don't seem to be able to adjust very well to community hospital working. Did suffer under the new docs a few years ago when I landed in a&e.

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Not this time but a couple of years ago one told me I would be discharged the next day (3rd day) after an attack. I was very new to the changes in my asthma and I believed him, arranged for my Mum to come up from Devon to escort me home from Ealing, I was heartbroken when the Reg saw me the next day and said no way, he told me that the Dr was very new and he thought all asthmatics would be better in 3 days! It was over 2 weeks later I was fit for discharge.

Bex

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From the other side... please be kind to the poor baby doctors! Most of them are terrified and are trying their best to take in an awful lot of new information, experience and skills in a very short period of time! It was six years ago today that I was in this situation and I still remember the utter terror of the experience - I was on-call on my second day at work and on nights on my second week, and it was completely hellish.

My husband Alex is one of the newbies this year as most of you know, and he has put in an incredible amount of work to feel more prepared to go onto the wards. He is determined to do as best as he can, and is very prepared to take the advice of the more senior doctors, the nursing staff and the patients who are knowledgable about their conditions.

In my experience the junior doctors who really run into trouble and cause havoc are the ones who are so arrogant or lacking in self awareness that they don't know what they don't know - and are unwilling to ask for or accept help from others. Most of those soon have the arrogance knocked out of them, although sadly there are a few who never really learn. But there are always people like this in every profession and industry - it is by no means just doctors - and most of the junior doctors out there today are only too well aware of their limitations and are very ready and willing to take advice and to learn.

I have not the slightest wish to turn this into a doctors - vs - nurses debate (Andrea, Ange, Den etc, you know I love ya all really!) and the nurses at the hospitals I've worked at have been for the most part talented, well-informed and supportive people, but just as there is the occasional bad doctor there are also nurses who delight rather too much in taking doctors down a peg or two - even if it is not really necessary - and will be unneccessarily obstructive and only too happy to see juniors making mistakes. I admit that most of the problems in the doctor-nurse relationship are historically probably down to the attitudes of doctors, but times they are a-changing and most junior doctors today are only too happy to take advice from their more experienced nursing colleagues, so give us a chance, speak nicely to us instead of being derisive and making fun of us, and we will do our best to get things right, learn quickly and to achieve the best possible working relationship with you.

Okay, rant over, I will go back to sitting here pondering what time Alex is going to get back from work tonight (Big consultant ward round this afternoon and then ward round jobs after that so my money's on roughly 8.45pm - thank goodness for chip shops!).

Take care all, and avoid the hospitals if you can!

Em H

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Never dawned on me then but just realised that it was probably a newbie who was treating me in A&E one Saturday night in February a couple of years ago (cos thats the other change over). I was given O2 and nebs, had peak flow measurements done, sent for chest Xray, issued with antibiotics and discharged with a peak flow of 200 (normal 380). The phrases ""dont be ridiculous we never ever prescribe pred with antibiotics"" (indignantly from the Dr) and ""come straight back if you feel you need to"" (apologetically from the nurse) were ringing in my ears as I wheezed back to the car park in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Needless to say when I got to the GPs to get some pred on the Monday he was not happy with A&E and wanted the Drs name to put in a complaint; he actually seemed disappointed that I hadnt been well enough to think about getting his name

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Em I am always gentle with the new Dr's I have to feel sorry for them when they get the asthatic wheeled into resus at 3am with a protocol from hell and an 18 year old son in tow telling the baby Dr what to do. I think the problem is the asthmatics who don't conform to the norm, if A,B and C don't work in the specfied time they are clueless and right in the middle of crisis for me is not the best time for them to learn!

Bex

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I feel sorry for the ones trying to get venflons in me - one time both of us were in tears! (He is now a very good doc from what I have heard!)

I find they can get either flustered or try to stick to what should work!

Some Drs are very good and know about our difficult lungs and that they need enough ventolin to dilate an elephant.

Kate

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Em we do try and be gentle and helpful with the new docs but when you get one like our last one who could be given the list of what needs doing, do about half of it, then disappear off duty for the rest of the day so we can't contact him it does get a little frustrating. We had to call his supervising GP in so many times to do simple tasks and yet we and they never managed to improve him in 6 months. The one before him was brilliant though. All you newbie docs just remember to communicate with your nurses and you will get all the help you need.

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I think it must be terrifying and overwhelming to be a newbie dr! I've had good and bad experiences but i'm still here so even when bad they must have done something right!!

I would like to thank the brave junior dr's who have turned to my hubbi in resus and said ""right what do we normally do for her when she's like this"" instead of trying to stick strictly to a protocol i don't match - has got me out of difficulty on many occasions much appreciated!!

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Erm... is all I can say, they are a mixed bunch, had some lovely ones yesterday and then today there were two that were in a word...erm.