Life as a Junior Doctor

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Come to think of it, it has been about over six months since I last updated the blog. Undoubtedly, many things have happened in between this period of time. Firstly, it has been a year since I have first started working as a junior doctor in Malaysia. Having said that, I have completed the first year of internship and I am currently doing my fourth rotation in Obstetrics and Gynecology department as a second year intern.

Well, the thought of life getting easier as you advanced through career is not as pretty as it sounds. Having completed internal medicine, orthopedic and pediatric rotations previously certainly did not prepare me well enough to enter the O&G world as it is a field of its own. The reason being the main focus of O&G is on the female reproductive system which none of the previous mentioned departments have to deal with.

Also, it is worth to note that working in the O&G department is comparably more stressful than other departments as the doctors are dealing with two lives at the same time. Whenever patients collapsed in the ward ( pretty uncommon), we have to attend the patient immediately without wasting any time as each second is important to ensure survival of both the pregnant mom and the child that she is bearing.

Aside from that, some of the hospitals here have been converted to covid-19 centers in order to take in all the covid patients and prevent them from spreading to other patients in the hospitals that are not suffering form covid-19. That includes the hospital that I am working. Junior doctors in certain departments are fortunate as the workload in their departments have been reduced to minimal due to the pandemic especially the surgical based departments. Most of the elective operations have either been delayed or canceled.

Nonetheless, that is not the case with Obstetrics department. No pandemic or natural disasters could stop a pregnant mother from signs and symptoms of labour after all. The admissions are packed as usual and there were numerous patients like any other day. While some of the preggies came in for labour, there were pregnant moms who came in with bleeding.

Albeit most of them are not in serious condition and they were able to deliver their babies safely soon after, unfortunately there were a small amount of them who suffered miscarriages. The saddest part of this event that I have ever witnessed was a pregnant lady who was 39 weeks pregnant and she insisted to deliver her baby on 40 weeks as it was her wedding anniversary despite the advice to deliver earlier as she has gestational diabetes.

When the time came, we found out that her baby's heart has stopped and the baby has passed away. It was such a sad scene and all of us were taken aback by the incident. It was however, the saddest news for both of the couple and they were sobbing non-stop.

Otherwise, most of the pregnant women were able to deliver their babies healthily be they normal vaginal delivery or through cesarean section. Shortly after few days, both the moms and their babies are discharged from the hospital. As I have only started working recently in this department, I foresee myself facing with lots of challenges when taking care of these pregnant moms and in no doubt I will learn a whole lot new knowledge throughout these four months in the department. Wish me luck. xx

The hospital is a place where interesting situations occur on a daily basis.


Nurse: Dr, patient in bed 18 hypoglycaemia. Hypocount only 3.

*Stands up immediately and walk over to the patient*

Me: Mr X, did you eat anything before taking your anti-diabetic medications? Any stomach pain? Feeling sweaty or dizzy?

Mr X: Oh no, doctor. I am fine. I only ate 1 bun since this morning.

Me: How come?

*Points down at his left leg that was put on a backslab due to a toe fracture*

Mr X: Oh, its because i do not want to get down from the bed and go to the toilet. I'm trying to make sure I do not need to pass motion these few days.

Me: Hmmm.....

*Internally roll my eyes at him*


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During afternoon rounds with the MO (medical officer. Basically, your boss)

MO: Why is the central line still inserted even though it she is day 2 post operation?

Me: That is the only IV line we have for the patient. She is still complaining of pain, we are planning to keep it to inject IV painkillers. Is that alright?

MO: Oh, okay. We will keep it in then.

The next day....during morning specialist rounds

Specialist: Why is that central line still in?

MO: *Immediately responds and looks at us* Yeah, why is that line still in? I thought I gave orders for it to be removed yesterday?

*Exchange glances with my friend and gave each other a WTF look*

Me: It was for the IV painkillers. But, alright, we will remove it today.


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Going to work on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year....

*Security personnel sitting outside our ward waves me over*

Security: Dr, nah. Ni bagi doktor. Kesian tengok dr kerja masa perayaan. *Stuffs a red packet into my palms*

Me: Kak, you ada menyambut CNY kah?

Security: Tidak lah. Nak bagi you saja. Bagi you lucky lucky tahun ini.

Me: Terima kasih kak!

I gave her a hug and thank her for making me my CNY working day more memorable.

*************

It is all these small things we encounter that makes everyday different. I still dread my alarm going off at 5 am every morning, but yet, I arrive at the hospital telling myself that it will be a good day. It is entirely up to us to decide on how you want to get through your day at the workplace. There are times when I get fed up with the system and even my colleagues. You could either bottle it up and let it get the better of you, or just find a few people and rant about it. I do that....and it definitely works for me!

Working in this field has taught me alot about life. One of it is life is very fragile and unpredictable.

Almost everyday or not every other day, I see life seeping out of patients from predictable to unpredictable ones. After pronouncing more than 30+ deaths to family members, I thought this would have made me a tad bit heartless.

Last week, I received a phone call from my sister in the middle of the day while I was busy working. Thinking it was odd for her to call me, I picked up the call. In a very sad tone, she informed me that our paternal grandmother has left us. At that moment itself, I actually felt numb. It felt like another death being pronounced. As I was unable to attend the funeral due to work schedules, I felt guilty but I prayed for her to have a safe journey to the other side.

That night itself, I offered my last respects to my grandmother via videocall. The moment I saw her face, I burst into tears. (Nopes, this job has not made me anymore resilient to all these emotions.) I might not be very close to my grandmother but seeing her for the last time really tugged on my heartstrings. She was very fit and well the last time I saw her (maybe around a year ago?). I wished for her to be at a better place now, away from all the negativity that she was facing in these recent months. 

So people always say that doctors are heartless which I do not think its true. We might pronounced deaths with a pokerface but that is just to maintain our professionalism. A little bit of us still dies inside everytime we face a death especially if its someone dear to us.

Therefore, take care of all your friends that are having a hard time (whether they are doctors or not). Mental health is still a taboo in society nowadays. But it is up to us, to change this perspective :) 

Lastly, always appreciate those around you while they are still beside you so you would not have any regrets when they are gone someday! 

Photo by Severin Höin on Unsplash

It has been about six months since I first started working in the hospital. Honestly speaking I am still trying to get to get the hang of everything that is going on around me. Even after working as a second posting junior doctor, I realise that there are still a whole lot of things that I simply do not know or even heard about them.

Gone are the days whereby I could say that I am a first posting junior doctor and being excused from the mistakes or things that I have missed sometimes. Now, I am expected to know most of the things, if not all of them.

The only thing that I know for sure in medical field is in fact the uncertainty of it. There is totally nothing that you can be sure of 100%, be they the effects of your managements on patients or simply the workload that you might have on daily basics.

For instances, not every patient will react to the same treatments that they have been given similarly. Some might recover completely from the conditions that they are having while others may succumb to death despite all the efforts you have put in order to get them healthy.

I can clearly recall one incident that happen in the ward that I was taking care of previously. Martha was a 60 years old lady who was diagnosed with blood cancer in early of 2019.  She was then admitted into the hospital for multiple rounds of chemotherapy.

Initially she responded pretty well to the treatment, albeit losing all of her lustrous locks day by day until she was completely bald, needing wig to cover her head. Nonetheless, her condition started to deteriorate and during her admission to the hospital for fourth chemotherapy, she became unconscious and passed away despite various attempts to bring her back to life.

Same thing goes to the workload. You can never be sure of the amount of work you have everyday. One day you might be free for the whole day and the next day you may be as busy as a bee, running around requesting for scans, tracing blood results, clerking new patients and the likes.

All in all, some might see the unpredictability as a beauty of working in medical field. Others, might beg to differ. I certainly, belong to the latter group. However, the only way to deal with uncertainty is to go along with it and try not to be too stressed over things that are unforeseeable. Life is after all unpredictable it self. Cheers.