I have been meaning to write for a while, but don’t ever seem to find the time.
Quick update on news:

I am really enjoying my new job in paediatrics. I love being in a team again, and the hospital and people are all nice. I’m not a fan of nights, or working weekends, but the work isn’t nasty.

We are still looking for houses. We have had a few weeks off as we got fed up with it all. We did put offers in on one house, but none were accepted. We have just recently seen another potential, so are currently debating putting offers in.

We are going to America! I am vey excited about this. Ian had a paper accepted for a conference in Salt Lake City. So we are flying in and out from there, but doing a road trip to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and several national parks while we are there. Jon and Cathy are coming too, which makes it an even more happy trip.

I am loving the fact that we have had a sunny week. I’ve been at work for most of it, but went up the mountain with a kite and friends yesterday which was great. Trying to think of what to do today, but the clouds are already starting to gather.

I am now working at the main hospital in Paediatrics. I am a little scared about having to make sick children better and get blood from tiny veins etc. I am sure it will all be fine. Everyone here seems lovely so far.

I like working in GP, but am so glad to be finished. I was quite depressed this winter and found that I didn’t feel very supported or encouraged, which left me feeling lonely and without confidence. It was hard work getting through the low days, and decisions were particularly troublesome, which is not good when you are having to make decisions every few minutes in work.

I start a bit earlier now (8:30am), but also finish earlier (4:30pm), so I will be able to enjoy the summer evenings. I’m back on an on call rota, so working 1/8 weekends/nights/long days etc. We cover all ages on children, so I will be working on the baby unit, the childrens ward, the admissions unit, baby checks, and occasionally in the community.

Life is starting to feel more positive and I like it. The only bad bit this week is trying to do all the discharge summaries left over from the previous people in this job.

I got my scores back from the selection day for GP. I scored 84, although I do not know what that means. In the skills feedback I got 9 ‘Very good demonstration of competence suggesting a strength’, and 3 ‘Sufficient demonstration of competence’. I guess that is a good thing.

I also saw a patient today who had been at the start of my bad patch at work asking about a termination of pregnancy. She has come back and is 4 months pregnant as she decided not to go through with it. Part of me is pleased as I didn’t feel at all comfortable talking about or referring on to the services that provide terminations. The other good thing was that I was able to feel and appear a much more competent doctor this time round as my head makes more sense. Its like a closure event for my falling apart and shows that I might survive as a GP.

Thankyou to everyone who sent things or came over to celebrate my birthday. I am gradually growing out of being very excited about my birthday, but I do still like to enjoy it, and many of you have helped that happen. Thanks.

I made lots of food for the afternoon tea and pudding party on sunday. My siblings and others did very well at munching through it. We do have half a cheesecake, half a trifle, some apple and pear crumble and a few other bits to tidy up. I’m sure that we will manage that soon enough…

Hooray

The selction day at the Hilton last tuesday went ok, I managed to talk sense and be nice to the pretend patient. I was quite nervous after as everyone else there was so nice. The results were due out friday, so every hour or so I was checking the website. Eventually at 5:45pm I gave up and headed home from work. Once Ian was also home we went to check again, and hoorah, the results were finally out, and I had been offered a place on my first choice of training scheme. That means I must have been clever and nice enough to score well.

I will be starting my GP training in August based in the Glamorgan Valleys (Llantrisant and Merthyr hospitals). I am very pleased and glad that the selection process is over so I can relax and not worry for a few weeks. I am also feeling a little more sane and less negative now I have my tablets back. Its nice to realise every now and then that they are doing something.

Next challenge, find a house…

Hello
I am 27 as of today.
I feel no different.

I am at work and feeling quite fed up really. It isn’t helped by the fact that I have run out of my tablets as the doctors was shut yesterday. Also my exam thing yesterday went ok, but everyone else there was so nice that I don’t know if I will score well enough in comparison to get into the training scheme (it is all scored and ranked). I am always quite self critical, and recently I have been feeling that I am not great at my job and everyone here thinks I am useless and odd. I want to go home and sleep some more as that is my hiding place to avoid the worries of life.

I am eating mini eggs to try to make the world better in the mean time. Hopefully I will feel more happy for my party this weekend.

Well, I have got through the application form and paper exam stages of the selection process. I am now facing the final selection stage this week. It involves a paper about how you prioritise things, a patient scenario with an actor patient, and a group discussion.

I don’t think there is anything I can do to prepare for it, other than make sure I have all the correct paperwork that they want to see. I am very scared though, because if I don’t get this I do not know what I will do for a job from August. I am feeling quite anxious today. Praying that I will survive the day and get whichever post I will learn best and be happy in.

Its strange that you can be in a place with so many people and feel so alone. I find that at work a lot at the moment. I am seeing patients every 20 mins, and I have the other doctors and staff around, but I feel so alien. I am the trainee, here for 4 months then gone. Why should anyone bother to build a deeper relationship with me?
It feels as if no-one is interested whether I exist or not. They are nice people, and happy to help if I have a problem, but everyone is busy and has lots of things to do. Its just they all have their own rooms to it in and so you don’t see much of anyone. I guess it doesn’t help that I have been down and less interactive than at other times of year. I just feel a bit pointless and lacking a role.
The good news is that I passed the exam and am through to the next round of GP applications. A half day of clinical scenarios/discussions in Cardiff in 2 weeks time.

After spending a few days at home/work I was back on the road again. We set off on Friday to Buckinghamshire to stay at my Dads. It was his birthday on Thursday, so we all went home to have a birthday party. It was lovely to have all my siblings together, and to be back in the home we grew up in.

We popped to town on Saturday morning just to remember what it was like. In the afternoon we played a lot of Boggle and super Boggle. Then in the evening was the party. Some of Dads friends had cooked a small feast for everyone. There was the family, Dads gang, and some other couples from church. We sat around catching up with everyone and eating lots, it was very nice.

On Sunday we all relaxed and then ate a roast before people packed up and started on their separate ways: Joy and Nathan to Bristol, Ian Doug and Ian to Cardiff, and me to Green Street Green to visit my favourite Penny.

I spent the next few days there, making her sisters wedding invitations, shopping, watching movies, and eating lots of puddings. It was good. I am getting the hang of this time off thing. I quite like it. 2 day working weeks seem to be a good idea. Maybe I should do more of it. Unfortunately I don’t have enough leave to do that all the time. I shall just have to enjoy it while I can.

From Swansea we continued our journey west to stay in a B+B in Tenby. We had a little holiday there to relax after all my revision and exam stress. We did lots of walking and looking at the sea from various beaches. We visited St Davids, the westerly-most point of Wales (we think), the lakes at Bosherton, Tenby and Saunderfoot, we saw Pembroke castle, Manorbier castle, and a few others, and on the way home we visited the national botanic gardens for Wales.

It was lovely to get to relax and be by the sea. The B+B was distinctly mediocre, but was warm and dry and didn’t smell. I felt calm and sane and enjoyed not having to be at work for a while. It was also nice to spend some time with my husband without the busyness of life (or computers).

Last night we stayed in the nicest B+B I have ever been to. It is called Christmas Pie and it is in Swansea. The room we were staying in was called ‘arts and crafts’ and was beautifully decorated and imaculately clean. It was a large room with a bay window with a view of the sea in the distance. It also had a well designed and fitted en-suite toilet and shower room, with a super power shower. The only bad thing was the double bed had a footplate which Ian and I kept kicking in the night as we are used to kingsize with no toe-stubber at the end.

In the morning we were provided with a lovely breakfast made from good quality ingredients, all the preserves were home made and there was fresh pressed apple juice to drink. I has to eat fast and then zoom off to my exam, but Ian got to go back and enjoy his cuppa and chat with the man who runs it with his lady. I would love to stay here again if I ever need to stay in Swansea.

The exam went ok. We had to be there at 8:30am for a 9am start. There were a few hundred people all sitting the exam at our venue, with simultaneous exams at other locations. We had to sit 3 papers one after another with no breaks to move about in (would take too long with that many people). It is all multiple choice or order ranking questions so they can be marked by computer. I think I did ok, but it is impossible to tell the outcome as I will be ranked against everyone else who sat the exam and they are my peers. Hopefully it will all be ok and I can continue on the path to becoming a GP.

After having a nice long break from revision and exams since med school, I have had to find time to sit and read and hopefully learn again recently. I am going for the GP vocational training scheme entrance exam on saturday and want to pass well to give me a good chance of getting into the next round in the selection process. I am not a fan of revision as I so easily get bored, but I am trying hard to get through lots of material as this is an important step for my career.

I have various events this week in the evenings (Jennies birthday dinner, pancakes, church group social etc) but am trying to work hard in the afternoons to make up for it. I also have the day off on friday to revise and pack for my little holiday in west wales after the exam.

We have seen some more houses this week. One was a totally run down house that hadn’t been lived in for 6 years. It possibly didn’t have working electrics, only one tap currently works, lots of damp, overgrown jungle of a garden etc. It did have amazing views: the back garden leads down to the river and beyond is a meadow with Gwaelod-y-Garth and the Garth itself in the background. As good as the location was, we decided that it was too much hassle as would need total refirbishment, and as first time buyers with no experience it was not a good plan.

Some of the other houses have been nice, but we haven’t foun done that we both like enough to put an offer in yet. Also because it is scary.

I had my week of supported consultations which were useful, with the added experience I have gained of seeing people and their different ailments, I am feeling a bit more confident again. I have also increased my antidepressant and bought a new lightbox which I can use at work, so hopefully they are helping too.

We have started looking at houses to potentially buy one in the near future. It is an exciting prospect, but quite scary too. At the moment we are looking around Taffs Well as we quite like living here. One of the delaying factors is finding out where I have a job for next year, as it wouldn’t be good to buy a house here and have a job in Bangor or somewhere far.

I used my break between morning clinics and evening clinic to go to the IT training dept to start my ECDL (European computer driving licence – a basic computer literacy qulification). People seem to think it looks good on application forms etc. I had done a little bit of reading in my previous trust, but never made it to do any exams. You can sit exams a couple of times, so I thought I would give them all one attempt and then do the background reading for anything that I didn’t pass. Each exam is 45 minutes, so I thought that I could do a couple per afternoon on any days I was free over the next couple of weeks.

I worked my way through the modules and passed the first few without too much difficulty and only taking about 15 minutes for each. I managed to pass the spreadsheet module (excel) even though I haven’t used excel since I was at school. I kept going and passed the next couple, getting 100% on the internet and email one. I had left the database module to last as I had never used Access. Using the general logic from the rest of Office and by repeating some of the scenarios several times I somehow even managed to pass that , but with my lowest mark of them all.

I am really pleased that I passed and think it is great that I did it all in one afternoon, with just enough time to get back to the GP to do my real work. I feel a bit bad for the ladies sat behind me who kept failing the practice tests though.

I have been having a bit of a bad week, feeling low, and having some difficult things to manage. I had to talk to a lady who wanted a termination of her pregnancy and deal with referring her to suitable places to take it further. I really didn’t want to be doing that as I don’t agree with abortion, especially for the reasons she was giving. I tried to get help, but felt totally unsupported and ended up being upset after that days work. It affected my work a bit and my supervisor noticed that I had lost a lot of confidence in my decision making.

We have therefore decided to take a step back and return to me having supervised consultations (ie me seeing patients but with one of the senior doctors sitting in to give feedback and help if needed). I feel a bit stupid and a failure having to do this, but I know it will be good in the long run. I had my first couple of supervised consultations this afternoon. It is a bit dauting having someone watching and analysing all you do, but it is useful getting feedback so I can get better at doing my job. I haven’t been taught much about lots of the things you need to know to be a GP, so it will be good to actually get some direct teaching,

We watched the documentary on coca-cola last night at our church life group (group of about 10 people who meet up each week to talk about current social issues and how it affects our lives as Christians and what we should be doing). We talked about the good bits and the bias of the documentary. Cathy has already given up coke because of them being bad. I don’t like it anyway, so not a problem for me.

We have discussed in the past and a bit more last night a bit about other areas where we could be a bit better for the world with our shopping. There have been all the recent bits on the telly from those chef types about buying free range chickens as otherwise the hens are treated all horribly. We try to buy fairtrade where we can (tea, coffee, sugar, bananas, dried fruit, chocolate etc). Being aware of the companies we buy from, how they treat their workers and where they source their ingredients etc from.

I also try to be green when I can: turning lights and other electric things off when they are not needed, not using excess water, driving at 60 rather than 70 on the dual carriageway to work, hiding under a blanket rather than turning the heating on, etc.

I think everyone should look at where they spend their money and how they can use their spending power to better the world and the people living here. I know I am far from being perfect, but I have made a start. Thank you. The end.

I had a moment sat on the sofa recently where I realised how grown up I am suddenly. I am married, living in a house that I can be in charge of, paying bills, working as a doctor, signing hundreds of pounds worth of prescriptions each week, worrying about finding time to get the car serviced or do washing etc.
Hopefully being grown up doesn’t have to make me serious and boring.

I did my first housecall today, dealt with my first 3 telephone consultations, and sent 2 people in to hospital for worrying symptoms that needed more looking at. I have been in GP land just over a month (minus holidays and sick leave) and am gradually getting the hang of the new style work load.

NB. The problem with house calls is people with smelly houses.

I am enjoying my GP block, and think I can probably manage to do this as a job, so I am in the final stages of filling in my application for the GP training scheme to start in August. Once the application gets accepted (which I’m sure it will), I have to sit an exam (feb 9th), and if I do well enough in that I will get invited to a selection centre for further assessment (march), which if i get through I will be offered a training post. I also need to do well enough to secure a place at one of my preferred areas for training (hopefully south wales). Lots of ifs!