Turbulence
I.I.IV
TURBULENCE
Okay, I’m gonna start this off with a little disclaimer. This part’s gonna be about toxic professional relationships. You might feel as though someone else is writing this – a spiteful, evil little Grinch spewing all kinds of negativity. But it’s part of my story. And as one-sided and biased as this might sound, I do realise everyone has their own demons they battle with every day. So… here it goes.
I seemed to be killing it right from the start. I got the hang of the job pretty quickly and I never left my seniors or my patients wanting for anything. I felt like a rockstar. I was confident, steadfast, efficient, and I also knew my limits. Plus, I could hide my cockiness pretty well, so I still appeared humble to the untrained eye.
But it wasn’t all fun and games. Remember my colleague, Valentina? As a foreigner, she had many things going against her. For starters, she had just moved to Malta, so she hadn’t quite gotten used to everything – mainly the language and the people. Plus, she didn’t know her way around the hospital like we did. Which is fine. I was genuinely looking forward to showing her around until she got the hang of things. We’d be in this together. For three months, we’d be working side by side every single day, six days a week. I was actually excited at the prospect of sharing both my workload and my life with her. She seemed assertive, strong, independent, and had a very interesting background.
But, I gotta say, it was rough at the beginning. She hadn’t gotten her work permit yet, so she wasn’t medicolegally covered to do most of the things a house officer has to do. Every signature would be void – meaning she couldn’t write notes, prescribe meds, discharge patients, or do anything requiring a medical registration code. Plus, she couldn’t perform any hands-on procedures – like taking bloods or inserting IV cannulae.
This meant I had to do practically everything by myself, which I was fine with. In the meantime, she’d get used to our system and shadow the firm so the transition would be seamless once she got her work permit. Only it wasn’t.
Our firm had two house officers for a reason – we were one of the busiest firms in the entire hospital with an unmanageable workload for a single junior doctor – let alone one who’s just starting off.
With or without a permit, Valentina’s level of function remained identical. She showed no initiative, and my seniors could tell. They’d see me running around ragged and would confront her about it time and time again. She’d accept their feedback, then ignore it moments later. And she was arrogant. So, so arrogant. She acted as if she knew everything, and if anyone – seniors included – tried to give constructive criticism, she’d come up with excuses and justifications. Oh, and she’d throw fits of rage at our seniors. Our seniors.
At first, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. After all, she was new to all this and there was a language barrier. While some patients simply didn’t speak English, we’d do our best to translate and include her in the conversation. Whenever I stumbled upon one of her mistakes, I’d try to explain what she could have done instead – in my best non-condescending tone. We’d have nice and civil sit-downs – going over how we could be a better team, how we should rely on each other when unsure or overwhelmed. And it seemed to work.
For about a hot minute. Complaints about her work ethic – or lack thereof – kept piling up. And the worst part? Most people complained about her to me. “Marius, you know, Valentina pricked the same patient seven times with the same needle.” “Hey, Dr M, she’s yelling at patients again.”. “Listen, just so you know, Val just gave penicillin to a penicillin-allergic patient – again.”
And so I’d go around fixing her mistakes, effectively doubling my workload. I ended up doing about 90% of the work on my own, with no real support – except for other colleagues who would occasionally make time for me out of their equally busy schedules, just cause they could see how badly I was drowning.
I confronted her over and over. It started friendly and polite, but as I grew more worn out, my remarks inevitably became more negatively charged – especially on hectic days. She’d always get defensive, insisting no harm was done or that the work would eventually get done. As her peer, it was deeply uncomfortable having to call her out.
For a while, I stopped nagging her and I minded my own business – working twice as hard to appease Mr Moody’s infinite list of requests. My colleagues told me to stand my ground and demand more for myself – that it wasn’t my responsibility to call her out, and technically, they were right. It was my seniors’ responsibility. They should’ve done something about it sooner – especially when they realised their previous interventions hadn’t worked. I guess, as hurtful as this might sound, it’s that they didn’t really care who was doing what as long as the job was getting done.
But it was impossible for me to keep up and I realised it was interfering with patient care. So how could I, in good conscience, let that happen? What was the alternative? Should I have kept on correcting her mistakes incognito? Should I have gone over her head to my seniors and throw her under the bus? Or should I have confronted her yet again? It felt like I was at an impasse.
The frustration kept building. I was hypertensive and tachycardic for weeks on end. I was stressed out, smoking like a chimney, and losing weight like crazy. I felt like a pressure cooker ready to explode. And then, on one particularly chaotic day where I was freaking out over how much work we’d have to do in such little time, I found her having coffee with a friend. That’s when I blew up.
I motioned her into the doctors’ office and lost it. I listed her flaws and shortcomings. She yelled back and told me we were managing just fine. I raised my voice even louder and made a scene. As incredibly unprofessional as it was, I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was definitely not my finest moment – and worst of all, I knew it wasn’t sustainable. I was gonna get into trouble myself if we kept this up – and the last thing on my mind was losing my pretty medical license. Not to mention, I didn’t want to inconvenience my seniors with our petty drama – though it would’ve never gotten this bad were it not for their relative indifference.
I thought long and hard about it. Was all this friction because of me? Was I being too hard on her? I’m a hard worker. If I’ve got something to do, I get it done. I don’t let work pile up, and I ask for more once I’m finished. I’m a machine. And a perfectionist. Sharing a workload meant I’d have to accept someone else’s way of doing things, which is borderline unbearable for a control freak like me. So was she failing my impossibly high standards, or was she actually that bad?
I was also conscious of the possibility that this was toxic masculinity. A man asserting superiority over a woman. The thought horrified me. I grew up watching soaps and dramas with women in leading roles. I grew up believing women were the stronger sex and men were mostly idiots. I’m far more in tune with my feminine side than my masculine one. I even have a deep-seated repugnance towards men – which is friggin’ ironic given my sexuality. Suddenly, I found myself questioning whether I was contributing to the very sexism I despised. I was spiralling.
Melissa noticed. Seeing me on the verge of a breakdown, she sat down with me and talked it through. She reassured me this wasn’t about sexism or unrealistic standards. Her work wasn’t just subpar – it was practically non-existent. And apparently, every year, there’s at least one newly graduated doctor like this. What was eating at me wasn’t misogyny. It was the unfair and uneven division of labour.
So we had another friendly conversation. I apologised profusely and explained where I was coming from. She accepted my apology. Then she went over my head to my seniors and told them I wasn’t offering enough support. Mr Moody, apparently charmed by her looks and theatrics, sided with her – despite my hard work and spotless track record. That’s when I blew up again. I told him I asked her whether she needed help about seventy-five thousand times a day, and that she’d get offended every time cause she saw herself as some goddess who could do everything alone. I reminded him we were equals and that I shouldn’t be mediating workplace drama. Melissa and Mark backed me up, nodding along. And that’s when we landed on a solution that actually worked.
We split the workload evenly. I was responsible for my 50%, and she was responsible for hers. If her work was subpar, unsafe, or incomplete, it would be the senior’s responsibility – not mine – to address it. And it kinda worked. We barely interacted for the rest of the rotation, and the work didn’t suffer. She stayed late most days to finish her share, and Melissa and Mark often had to pick up her slack. But ultimately, I think it benefitted her. The tension eased. And so did my blood pressure.
It took a long time for the lessons to sink in. That I’m only accountable for my share of the work. That I have room to improve as a team player. That I shouldn’t bite off more than I can chew. That I should seek senior support sooner rather than later. And that colleagues aren’t always friends – even if we spend most of our lives with them. All of those lessons stuck. And today, I can honestly thank the gods for pairing me up with her.