II.IV.VI JOURNAL ENTRIES Journal entries from my rotation in emergency medicine: I go in to see a patient with a fever, headache, generalised muscle aches and a cough. She’s Ukrainian and doesn’t know a single word of English. Luckily enough, her husband is a Ukrainian doctor who boasts that he speaks five languages fluently, including English. Unluckily enough, he can’t […]
Crossroads
II.IV.V CROSSROADS That’s how it went for the rest of the rotation. Work hard, work harder – no time for play. But I was fine with that. It’d be over soon enough anyway. At that point, I had my future all mapped out. I was hoping to pass my exam so that by the time I finished my Foundation Programme, […]
Sacrifice
II.IV.IV SACRIFICE My time in emergency medicine was… different. It was a period of growth and existential crises, one that forced me to reevaluate parts of my life that had previously grounded me. It wasn’t so much the medicine itself as it was everything that came with the job. Despite having come a long way in curbing my superiority complex […]
Resolute
II.IV.II RESOLUTE On most days while working at the Emergency Department (ED), I’d walk out of hospital with a huge smile on my face – the kind that comes about very rarely, usually when I’d be assisting on some cool surgery. But this was different. After even the most mundane shift at the ED, I’d step outside covered in goosebumps, […]
Emergency Medicine – First Day
II.IV.I FIRST DAY The day I started my rotation at the Emergency Department (ED), I could hardly believe it. It felt exactly like when I had started neurosurgery. First of all, this was gonna be my last rotation ever as a house officer. There I was, having barely even started, and I was already at the top of the junior […]