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I was planning about posting next week, since I was told that one post per week would be the ideal number. "I will write about my first duty at the hospital as an official doctor", I decided. After all, it wouldn't be assigned to me unless I got familiar with all the paperwork, the workload of the hospital etc. Anyways, I got it all wrong. Here goes my first working day at the hospital:
I came to the hospital with a bunch of paperwork to complete my application for the job, plus my ID card and a white coat, just in case. There was one question in my mind: "Where the heck am I supposed to go first?" Surprisingly all the paperwork went quite easy and quickly, my employment began within minutes. Quite pleased with the ease of how things were going, I asked the second question: "So, what do I do now? What's my job?"
As the 37 newly assigned doctors who just graduated this year, we were sent to the meeting room to do the work distribution, which took hours of small-talks, stressful questions about how our scores for the residency exams were, what we wanted for ourselves throughout our compulsory service and so on. After staying in that airless room for hours making no progress, an officer exposed his dark face with grey hair back at the door without showing the rest of his body and yelled: "The work distribution is written here, you may take pictures of the paper".
I was assigned to the blood bank. "Nice" I thought, blood bank would be the least place that would need a doctor that's just graduated.
The second I entered inside the department, I was sent to talk to the responsible professor. She was a joyful one. She asked me a bunch of questions, like where I was coming from, where I graduated from, my high school, my primary school, my parents' jobs and so on. Then she asked me to join her while she was giving her lecture on blood groups for a certificate program.
"You don't know much, do you?" she asked me rhetorically.
I shrugged...
"Don't worry, you'll improve. It's your turn at the nightshift list today, isn't it?"
I said appallingly: "Is it?!"
"Yes," she explained. "I will be here tonight for the chief physician nightshift, so you will be under my supervision. There's no need to be worried. Follow me now, I'll tell you your responsibilities at this department"
She guided me to the officer's at the secretary desk. After a while, I got used to the job. I was responsible for observing whether the patient was appropriate for donating blood, according to their histories and their hemogram values, and calling the emergency room if there was any sign of blood transfusion reaction.
"Easier than I thought," I sighed.
Apparently my signature was way more important than I figured. It was so important that they made me stay there for the whole 24 hours.
It is also harmless to remember that it took 6 years for my signature to be this significant. "Do not underestimate your signature. Every signature is a responsibility," I told myself. I guess, that sentence was the lesson of the day.
Luckily, everything went pretty OK. By the end of the nightshift, which was at 8.00 A.M., my chief physician told me to sign for handing over the nightshift. I signed the last paper of the day, which was my first official signature of my working duties.
Being a doctor won't hurt as much as I thought it would, hopefully.
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I am a 25 year-old Turkish graduate from medical school.
My special interests follow as: reading medical articles, writing (currently indulged in 3 other personal blogs, one being a foodie-blog, the other ones serving as open diaries), playing violin and spending time with my little budgie.
