On the importance of perspective

Holidays... A vital necessity. I thought I'd been so smart, booking leave for every single half term for 2 years straight; then realised far too late how loooonng the summer holidays are. By the time it occurred to me (May) that I really should plan something, August had already been comprehensively diced and sliced by my colleagues' ever more super-organised wives.

Depression

But sneaking a couple of days off ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend has meant I've been able to get on a plane, baste on a beach and let the mounting frustrations of the past few weeks melt away like the ice in my cosmopolitans for five glorious days... so first day back I've adopted a zen-like calm which has freaked out everyone in theatres (I've been particularly toxic of late, but today, untrained newbies, of which there seems to be an inexhaustible supply, lack of professionalism and the gay abandon with which hundreds of pounds' worth of implants seem to be dropped on the floor, just washed over me in my protective bubble of holiday euphoria)

How long can this last ... ?! Just have to hang in there till half term ...

On futile gestures

It's all going to pot. Cutbacks (cost improvement programmes, lean efficiency measures, the euphemisms are endless) mean a cut in the quality of service. But not the quantity of service, noooo, we function on the Lidl Marketing strategy: pile em high, sell em cheap. Our door never closes.
Today's bombshell: senior staff are more expensive than school leavers. Wow. Wonder why that is because experience counts for nothing in today's NHS. So, wizard wheeze, sack 20% of your senior nursing work force, employ numpties and Carry On Regardless

That strategy couldn't possibly have a down side, could it.

And of course, we now function in a Foundation State (ex-Libyan leaders welcomed) with the footsoldiers too scared to speak else they are suddenly invited to reapply for their own job.

For the first time in the history of the NHS, the hospital doctors' jobs aren't safe. Merge to grow - and rationalise. We've lost our voice

On venting spleen

My day consists entirely of listening. Listening, absorbing, assimilating, cogitating and after due consideration ... treating. I decided today, after twenty years of doing this (20 years and 23 days if we're nitpicking) I'd like to start venting.

Today, after twenty years of having every aspect of my working life overseen by here-today-gone-tomorrow, mediocre, middle-aged middle-management... I'm ready to vent. It just doesn't do to vent in the workplace. I think it scares people (management) to hear concerns spoken out loud, makes them real. Rather generates complaints in that quaint but effective catechism of attack being the best form of defence.

So I thought I would write down all the bonkers things that take place in my world, and perhaps, once I see it on the page, it will seem merely ridiculous rather than hellishly frustrating and I can laugh it all off.

Here we go...

August

Everyone knows August means entry into the Danger Zone, right? Hundreds of college students, kept infantilised by the protective cocoon of spoon-feeding medical schools, are belched forth into the Real World. This is a frightening place where People Are Really Sick: not a simulation, not a Virtual online game (sorry, 'module') but your actual real sick people. In a Hospital.

As final year students we were housemen to the Houseman, learning the nuts and bolts of patient care so come August 1st it was scary but not paralysingly terrifying. These guys have no idea they should be scared, their experience has been so far removed from real life.

And in the brave new world of Foundation training, we have these bright shiny young things for four months in which we have the opportunity to fire their imaginations, to demonstrate what a fantastic job we have, the amazing and awesome privilege of operating, fixing and mending broken and worn out People. To inspire the next generation...

Except we don't. With the EWTD, days off after nights on call, annual leave, educational half days (da di da di dah) we have them for 24 working days. 24. That's it. And they don't realise it. You can spell it out all you like but they just don't get it.

They're gone. Next job. Mad panic come the following July as they discover none of their beginning, middle and end assessments have been done, tears, pleas, threats of legal action when they realise the boat's been missed... but they always get let through by the skin of their teeth

And then it's August again...