Unfamiliar territory.
Unfamiliar people.
Uncertain where to go.
Uncertain what to do.
Uncertain what to expect.
Uncertain what’s expected of me.
Why I’m doing this I’m not even sure. Perhaps if I had considered my career options better I’d not be in this situation, but I’m not turning back now. I guess it’s normal to feel a bit disorientated on the first day of clinical attachments and I can only hope that things get better, ‘cause if they don’t, it’s going to be a long and dreary six weeks of hell. I don’t like unfamiliarity. I feel so powerless when I don’t know how things work or what systems are in place, and combined with the constant fear of getting lost I had a pretty rough day today. Added on are the simple tasks of everyday living that become so much harder simply because things are so much easier back home. I guess you could say I’m a guy who hates change, and it takes me time to settle into a new environment. Yeah, that’s just one thing I guess you could call my weakness. I just fall into a routine every day to the point I don’t have to think about anything, and when things change I suddenly have to think about the things that I previously took for granted and have to rethink things through. Such thought processes drain me mentally and I just feel so tired at the end of a day like this one. Especially since I just got to Hamilton yesterday and still haven’t figured everything out.
Today I was introduced to one of my consultants but I didn’t get to see any patients with him since he was busy for most of the morning. Fair enough, I suppose. But what made it worse was that my afternoon placement didn’t happen either since the team was out doing some training. I’m actually attached to two clinical teams, one community psych team that deals with patients in the community in (what I think is) an outpatient setting and in the afternoon I spend time with the Crisis Assessment Team that receives cases from the community and GP’s and deals with them on a case-by-case basis, referring or triaging them as they see fit. But hey, both of them had their things to do so I grabbed lunch in town (the community clinic is conveniently close to a nice vegetarian cafe I know), went back to the hospital and bugged some people on one of the pysch wards to ask them if any patients were being seen in the afternoon. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any patients to see there either (although one nice registrar showed me around, which was really awesome of him), so I just went home and hit the books. Oh yeah, I should mention, interspersed within the events of the day were numerous episodes of me getting lost in both the hospital and the clinic and once I was faced with the response “Will you buy me lunch if I do?” when asking for directions to my consultant’s office from one annoying lady =.= geez, some people really know who they can pick on. Just because I’m at the bottom of the food chain at the moment doesn’t mean you can give me shit, because I’m climbing up, and I’m going to get up there.
I sure hope tomorrow will be a better day. I want to fill in my logbook with cases as soon as I can and get all those goddamn boxes ticked so I won’t have to worry about them later when I’m stressing about CAT presentations and all those summative assessments that come at the end of the run. My consultant at the community clinic seems nice enough though, and he looked after me pretty well considering how busy he was today. I met the Crisis team briefly in the morning but they didn’t seem to know what to do with me since the consultant was away so I just pretty much sat there and watched. They were really busy, too. Seems as though there’s a shortage of psychiatrists (or just too many mad people, heh) and I’m not surprised the medical school is trying to bribe us med students with pizza lunches (we had one before starting our wards) to encourage us to specialise in their field. At least they had vegetarian pizzas there, so I’m not complaining.
I wonder what the easiest way to get internet access in my room would be. I’m considering getting a 3G Vodafone mobile broadband USB stick for my lappy so I don’t have to go to the commons every time I want to use the net. They close at like 5 which is kinda annoying since a lot of my internet use would be during the evening when I’m doing my research/surfing/msning so it would be really good if I could get it in my room. $79 for internet for 6 weeks seems a bit expensive but the USB stick might come in handy later in case I ever have to use it again. Just have to top it up I guess. Apart from having no internet my room is actually pretty nice for a free accommodation. I’m surprised the university have actually gone out of their way to provide us with a place like this since they normally don’t give us anything for free except our coursebooks and lab manuals at the beginning of the year. Normally it’s sort of like “we expect all med students to be at location xxx 15 minutes after class.” They will say “students are expected to organise their own transport to the venue” but in reality what they mean is this:
-“We expect you to either own a car or have your parents that can drive you.”
-“You won’t be able to use Auckland’s transport system because its shit and the place you need to be isn’t covered by the buses or trains anyway.”
-“If you have friends that can car pool with you but they’re only on their restricted we encourage you to break the law and make them take you anyway if that’s the only way you can get there.”
Meh, enough trolling for tonight, time to get some work done. Sayonara~
lol, I actually meant to post this 2 days ago but I realised the library and info commons close at 5 and I was out all day yesterday and too late to go down and post it on Thursday (I typed it on my laptop). The info commons are actually completely shut off during the weekend and I had a bit of an adventure this morning trying to find out where the after-hours entrance to the library was. I actually did go and buy a mobile broadbrand stick from the warehouse yesterday but the simcard that came with it was faulty =.= so I'm hoping to go back to them today to get that sorted out. Turns out that Facebook is blocked on the DHB computers (unsurprisingly) so I won't be on that until I get my mobile broadband up and running.
btw I thought I'd post some pics of my room at Hilda Ross House. Really good for free accommodation =D
