So it's 16th Sept soon to be 17th Sept 2015 and I have made it through now almost the first 2 months of Fy2! Initially it was odd, extremely odd, to sign "my name, F2" and answer the phone with "Hello, renal transplant SHO". That's right kidneys and transplants! Never quite saw that one coming.
Day one of being an F2 was quite a blur. A blur of acronyms, mainly. The whole ward round seemed to be spoken in code that only the medical and surgical consultant seemed to fully understand. Suffice to say it took about a week for me to learn to speak it, albeit perhaps a bit more simply!
So that month I spent most of my waking hours in the hospital. Our ward rounds started sharply at 0830 and my registrar made it very clear when I started that I must be in at 0800 to ensure that meeting did indeed start smoothly at 0830. Most days were very busy but I loved the buzz and learning new things everyday. My team were also very friendly and supportive and didn't make me feel silly for asking my continual host of questions!
After 5 weeks I was granted my week of annual leave in which I took my first postgraduate exam. Although I felt underprepared, it had been good opportunity to get back into my books which I surprisingly enjoyed. You forget in a way how much you've forgotten!
So I have now switched onto the chronic and acute renal team (we each take just a month's block on transplant) which is much calmer however I find myself back to square one, this time learning how to write dialysis scripts, and deal the other host of issues renal medicine can lead to.
All in all though, and slightly to my surprise, my love for medicine has definitely been rekindled and I find myself again feeling very uncertain where life might take me. Not in a nervous but more a factual way. Today came the news also that the British government have ruled an effectively 20% pay cut will affect juniors in England from next August... as if the bullet point pro-list for me staying in Scotland didn't need to be any longer!
At this moment in time I am also two nights away from my first medical SHO night shifts - my first now since the start of the year - in fact it was the night of the 1st January - so I hope I'll be able to stay up! I remember being delighted that I would have 8 months free of nights.. time continues to zoom by me!
