Another Day.....

.....and some work to do! I started off the day by having coffee with Ian (whom I managed to persuade to come in early) for 2 hours (I am getting far too familiar with the guys at the coffee bar) when I received a call from an anxious patient wanting stuff done. So that took ages to sort out (10 mins at home, but I had to find the notes, call the secretary, call the Consultant when the secretary wouldn't make an appointment without the Consultant's say-so etc). Then I got a classic call from Surgery. A patient with a PE post-op on IV heparin - could I come and tell them when to start warfarin?

I didn't go and see that patient.

My Consultant thought it was great and said that we should wait for the 3rd such phone call. It was great having some Consultant interaction, as I'm really missing that and we had a bit of clinical banter. He then proceeded to launch into how Scotland had been beaten in some kind of televised sport. Most of the Consultants are very sporty here, and they all go running/rowing at 5am.

I've had a really interesting consult today, and I've recommended loads of things which had all been put into motion in the 30 minutes that I left the ward without me asking for them to be done - very surreal. Of course, the entire management plan hinges on whether or not something in the lung can be biopsied, and to do this, we need the CT. Naturally, it has gone missing. I have been to ultrasound (they have the empty CT packet), nuclear medicine, CT, the filing room, reception and the main X-ray area and although I found the chest x-ray and last year's scan, this one has vanished. It's nice to know that some things don't vary from coutry to country - one such area being the CT department - we really were spoiled in Dumfries. At least the Radiologists seem nice. As I was getting nowhere, a kindly intern has gone a-wandering, what will most likely be a vain bid to source the errant CT.

I have another 30 minutes left, and then it's off home. Ian is in here until 11pm, so I guess I won't see him until Saturday morning now. We do have the weekend off together, and as Ian is working loads of weekends, we'll probably try and do something. We also have a Respiratory clinic tomorrow, and 'as long as the rest of them don't DNA because they've heard a Scottish person is here to see patients', I should have some work to do. Plus there's the CT to be found for tomorrow morning.

Then I move onto the District General. I am particularly thrilled to find out that the person I am covering for has not swapped the 2 on call shifts, and am really looking forward to covering them - 8-11pm, brilliant.

Not content with toppling Bernard Matthews, Jamie Oliver is trying to break Australia too, and is filming a gritty programme in Melbourne where a group of ex (and some current, as we will apparently discover tonight) drug users and various disadvantaged youths try to become world-class chefs in several months. I find that as I do most of my studying during the day, that although I get home later, I still have at least a couple of hours to relax doing mindless stuff like watching Futurama. If I go soon, I can catch the Simpsons....