GP-Land

This week has been particularly stressful.

But I'm sure I say that every week.

Amidst having plenty of complicated cases present at the clinic, I also had to suture a laceration yesterday that was approximately 10cm in length, and fairly gaping.

It was good practice, I was thankful for the opportunity to further my experience, and I feel I did a good job. Still, my neck and back ached by the end of it, and as soon I was done, I had to rush to the hospital to give a presentation about Wide Complex Tachycardia to an audience of consultants, registrars, interns, medical students, and nurses. Oh, and also the President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

No pressure.

Thankfully, with a lot of preparation and a touch of good luck, the presentation went well and I felt really positive about it. I was a massive wreck in the couple of months preparing for it though! It's nice to be able to look at it retrospectively and say that it was a success.

I'm currently on my 11th week of General Practice and around week 9, I finally felt like I was getting the hang of things. Given that all the rotations in our internship year (other than GP, if you're in my internship programme) is 10 weeks in duration, it's a little unfortunate that you only feel like you've finally got the job down just before they ship you off to another one.

But that's the nature of internship training, I guess. They like to keep us on our toes.

I like General Practice. That was one of the main reasons I selected my internship programme. I figured that after 20 weeks of GP, surely I'd have a better idea about whether or not I'd pursue it as a career.

What I've found, however, is that although I still find GP-Land a nice place to be I'm, I've developed a thirst for other specialties, particularly Emergency and Paediatrics.

I have an ED rotation at the end of the year, and I'm very much looking forward to that. I'd like to look into getting some experience in Paediatrics next year as well. And, of course, I still could be a General Practitioner and sub-specialise in Emergency and Paediatrics.

Decisions, decisions...

The good news is, I'm in no rush to decide.

Sleep

I have just come home from the hospital after attending to patients who were affected by a tornado that's hit not too far from here, and all I want to do... Is read.

I know I should be sleeping.

I still need to go to work tomorrow morning, as I have patients booked in to see me. I still might get called back in tonight if we received any more admissions. And I've been in theatre all day after having very little sleep the night before due to a case of food poisoning.

So, yes... I'm well aware that I should be sleeping. But I'm wide awake.

I'm finding myself flipping through my medical textbooks, looking for more information. My mind feels thirsty for knowledge... I feel like I need to fill it, refresh it, with questions to ask, symptoms and signs to look out for, medications and dosages... All for the next patient that comes through those hospital doors.

I want to be good at this. I don't want to miss anything.

Which is why... Despite not wanting to... I'm going to power off my brain and get some sleep.

It's counter-intuitive to me at the moment, but I know it's the right things to do.

I need it.