The end of all things small…

I’ve finally finished my Paediatrics. Since student days, I hated Paediatrics. Perhaps it was because I simply sucked at it. When I was a med student, I wasn’t good at persuading a child to allow me to examine him, I failed my short case, I hated dealing with frantic parents, I had very minimal patience for hysterical kids blah blah blah…

However, this time round it felt different. Working hours were great, but somehow I didn’t like the working environment and departmental politics. Neonates were fine, but toddlers still annoyed me, so I guess it was a blessing in disguise that I spent 5 weeks in the SCN, 7 weeks in NICU, 3 weeks doing labour room standby and only 2 weeks handling toddlers in the general wards. Then again, I supposed if I were to end up doing locum in the future, more time spent in general paediatrics would have been better.

Ah well, kids kids kids. Cute as they are, some are just downright spoilt by their parents and when they become ill, some parents treat them like kings and queens and just let them scream and throw tantrums everywhere. One father insisted on standing by my side to observe me do my dracula work on his child, claiming that he wanted to be sure I only took blood from his child’s hands or feet and nowhere else. I apologetically sent him out of the treatment room regardless, and just had to add with sarcasm that I wouldn’t draw blood directly from his heart, if that was what he was worried about.

Initially NICU was kinda stressful, with all those beeping machines and saturation monitors showing scary figures, but I soon had a sick addiction to those background “music” and developed a kind of peace in that chaotic area. During the 7 weeks that I was there, there was an fungal outbreak and we had to move into the SCN, which moved to the infectious ward, which moved into the general ward. So basically it was a big mess. We were pushing incubators here, there, everywhere…thank God no one forgot to switch them back on after shifting. Haha.

All in all, it was an interesting experience I guess. So it’s time to move on…

…to something even more fun, and some I actually like to do…for once, I hope.