The National Trust organised a one day blog for the 17th October for history. I have just posted my diary. Here’s a copy for me to remember what I’ve said. So bizarre to think that someone may be reading my diary is 100 years time…
An Ordinary Day, made extraordinary by love of friends and having my dream job
Well, my day started in the usual fashion, waking up as late as possible without actually being late for work. So I eventually got out of bed at 7.15am, leaving me half an hour to get dressed, put my make up on, make a flask of tea and some toast for the journey to work. The eating on the way to work has become a bit of an art, toast cut into small pieces to eat at various stages of the trip. Anyway, with breakfast in hand, I make my daily 40-minute trip from Southampton to my place of work.
I currently work as a foundation year two doctor, the new term for a first year senior house officer (SHO) at a GP surgery in New Milton, in the heart of the New Forest, which is a wonderful place to work. I have slightly longer to see patients due to my junior status, so instead of trying to take a history, examine a patient, make a diagnosis, come up with a management plan, print a prescription if necessary, all in 10 minutes, I get 20 minutes, which gives me time to do all this, and to ask my supervisor if I get stuck as to what’s wrong with the patient. It may be surprising to some people, but doctors don’t actually know everything the patients ask, so it’s very reassuring to be able to ask someone else for advice. Surgery this morning involved a large variety of presenting complaints. It is a misconception that GP’s just see coughs and colds. In fact, general practice is far more interesting than that! We certainly do see coughs and colds, but there weren’t any today on my list!
Today I had a head injury, a sprained ankle, a patient with depression and anxiety, someone else who just wanted cream for his dermatitis (and also got a BP check, flu jab and medication review at the same time), a lady with cystitis, and needed treatment for a urinary tract infection, someone with chronic diverticulitis and a patient who decided to cancel 15 minutes after her appointment, so don’t know what was wrong with her.
Usually morning surgery would be followed by lunch, and catch up with paper work before afternoon surgery, but today was a bit different. I made a trip back to Southampton General Hospital for my foundation year teaching so I can be a more knowledgeable doctor. Lunch was eaten during the teaching – a regular occurrence for doctors to eat and multi-task.
Today’s session was on child protection and non-accidental injury. It was very informative, with teaching from consultants of emergency medicine and paediatrics. I learnt about basic child airway management, and about how to recognise non-accidental injury, in layman’s terms, child abuse. It was a challenging afternoon, and caused me much anger and distress to see the kind of things that parents can bring children into hospital with. Don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of children who come in have genuinely hurt themselves in some way, but an awareness of the potential harm that could be inflicted by parents, family members and others should never be far from our minds as health professionals.
Although today was picked for the fact it was just an ‘ordinary day of no particular significance,’ Tuesday’s are always special for me. I get to be part of a weekly gathering of some of my closest friends in West End, Southampton. We eat together, and just spend time in each other’s company. Sometimes a lot of chatting is involved, other times it’s a bit quieter with everyone doing his or her own thing. Dinner involved a ‘choose your own topping’ pizza making session, and then the famous Lucy chocolate brownies (our group are always very happy when Lucy makes brownies 
) ). Most of my friends left about 10.30, however I ended up staying and chatting with the host’s until 1am. It’s interesting that if I didn’t need to go to work the next morning and we weren’t all tired, we would have carried on talking for hours…
