Coming to an end...

Currently I'm finishing off my surgery rotation by being on-call. Guess I got the short straw for tonight. Thankfully I don't have to be at work tomorrow at my new place in paediatrics.

So what have I learnt from my past three months in surgery? Let's start off with the good stuff. The nurses have been very nice to me. Most of the nurses at my previous hospital were very nice to me with only a few bad apples. I'm not saying who or which ward but after I got the hang of things they were very nice to me. The nurses at D5 at the main hospital were very nice to me. You would think that being in a high-tempo situation like an admission ward would make them hormonal cows but the head of ward plus all their nurses were very good to myself and the other intern. They were so nice I treated them to my chocolate brownies!

I'm glad that I got to see many subdivisions such as colorectal, vascular, general, endocrine & breast surgery. I got to admit such varied cases such as cholangitis, acute retention of urinary and appendicitis in the admissions ward. Even though many people don't like to work in admissions since there is no continuing care and the turnover rate is quite high, with few patients lasting twenty four hours before being changed to another subdivision ward, at least I get to see a variety of cases instead of just seeing colorectal patients or neurosurgical patients.

With that said, I won't be doing surgery as my specialty. I don't see myself working those long hours and standing doing surgery all day long. The most surgery I probably will do in the future will be in orthopaedics or during family medicine. Also I'm just not compatible with the surgeon personality. Surgeons are usually headstrong and overconfident which borders on arrogance. Also it is mostly a male-predominant, jock environment with little room for emotions. Most of the surgeons I have met are nice but there are others who could use a little tact and consideration when talking to people.

I don't think I will be doing radiology either. I have ruined my chances already and I think my reputation will spread to other hospitals as well. Also I do want to have more patient contact and I don't think I will get that with radiology.

I'm not trying to offend people by saying I don't like this specialty or I don't like that specialty. It's just a personal opinion. I know a lot of people who want to go into surgery or radiology, but it is not for me. I know a lot of people don't like psychiatry but I really like it.

Well I got three months of screaming kids to handle... wish me luck (lots of it).