holiday rant

Ended my stint in Internal Medicine and heading on to obgyn tomorrow. how do i feel about it? Mixed feelings. there is the
- fear in anticipation of another new environment, new colleagues, new bosses new protocols
- excitement of re experiencing obgyn on another level
- missing the oddly comforting but familiar medical wards
couldn't help waking up today with a small amount of stress. the holiday withdrawal syndrome... >8/
cant help feeling dreary. is that a word? ahaha. dreadful + weary = dreary? not so dreadful. it's good to be home. i'm not weary. life just feels so mundane sometimes. like running on an endless track. you successfully reach one checkpoint, then u work towards reaching another. n it goes on. halfway in between you give urself a break, throw in a holiday or two to break the routine. on and off you go for something good for the boost. then u're back running on the track again. i don't dislike my routine, still ok with it i guess..
a few friends and i, we were just thinking about our job description. to be honest, I spend more time running up and down, filling forms, taking bloods and samples, calling up different parties etc than thinking or making decisions. i only think maybe 10-15% of the time i'm working. dont judge me. it's the nature of my current job. blame it on the lack of manpower or resources or the system. i dont know. ideally a training should probably equip me with skills on how to make better and safe decisions instead of train my stamina to join a marathon (and lose weight without trying too hard). of course there's always the 'if you take the extra initiative to learn, ask questions, study, research, challenge decisions (to an acceptable asian working culture extent)' out of ur current job description, you can always learn. there's the mentality that only smart/good/passionate/goldmedallist/distinction attaining people go to extra lengths to do that. but seriously, after a physically exhausting day's work, it takes super willpower to sit down n self study. and that's talking about self study. not about a mentoring system. now then people would put down a point that teaching or mentoring can only be done in teaching hospitals at an ideal capacity. in a non teaching hospital, superiors still pass on skills and knowledge through their decision making. true. but if you cut off the time spent running to the labs/tracing results by foot or via call/tracing old notes/tracing old films/tracing clinic cards/taking bloods (ok taking blood is a procedure afterall so its fine to take bloods)/running samples at the ABG machine (that works), you would have more time on ur hands to better communicate with patients, educate them proper about their illness, give holistic care, research about illnesses, generate discussion with ur colleagues/bosses, all that in the essence of becoming a safer doctor. some ppl may argue that you do that in ur medical school days, but u gotta rmb that the nature of this job requires lifelong and continuous learning. chucking the stereotypical asian kiasu mentality aside, most ppl love learning and teaching (maybe lol), and to pass on and educate another in order to work more effectively as a team is something invaluable.

That said, i'm not all hardcore into detesting doing all those manual stuffs cz well, we are still understaffed and who else to do all that if not the trainees lol. i will still do it with grit and hope my physical young? self will not fail me haha. thr's no doubt we hv more staff now compared to 5 yrs ago.

oh well. just some thoughts about a more ideal system. and ranting before i start tagging tmr. sigh. time to savour the remaining day. 8-)