So what's been happening? I've just finished a three-week block of gruelling study devoted to rehabilitation and aged care. Let me tell you, those guys have it pretty good. Oh, not the aged - that is suboptimal in many ways - I'm talking about the rehab physicians and geriatricians.
Those guys have made a lifestyle choice. For a start, there's no such thing as an rehab or aged care emergency. Sure, bad stuff must happen all the time, but if it does you just say, "Someone get me an acute care specialist!" and go back to sleep.
Rehab work seems great because basically you have no responsibility except to sit in a meeting once a week nodding your head for an hour while the physios and occupational therapists and speech therapists and nurses and all those other hardworking types update you on what's going on and you say, "Good work team! Keep it up! See you next week!" and take off.
Aged care work also seems great because old people are generally pretty nice. Most people are jerks when they are young but gradually grow out of it. By the time they are 60+ they've really mellowed out. Come back and read this blog in 30 years and you'll notice that I make a lot fewer smartarse remarks and am in all ways a more pleasant person. And I'll probably talk about bridge a lot too.
This week though I have launched into a week of intensive brainwork on GP-land. Not Grands Prix - General Practice. Lots of roleplaying in the arvos - today I got to be Dr Aardvark, a 5th level doctor with a +1 Stethoscope and a Manual Of Canny Diagnosis. I vanquished an ornery patient in single combat and am expecting to level up real soon.
I struggled a bit in the morning because it was all lectures, which I think I have developed some kind of immune reaction to. I especially dislike lecturers who engage in gratuitous audience participation. This morning the guy would spend five minutes asking us for our opinions on why fish tanks might be soothing to patients in doctors' waiting rooms* before saying, "Actually no-one really know why they are so soothing, nobody has really looked into it", and continuing on to the next tangential vox-pop. Aaaargh!
Anyway, it would be easy for me to sit here complaining, but in the end the day was great - there was free cheese for afternoon tea! It was those little slabs of cheddar like tiny cholesterol tombstones that you get given on airplanes. I ate four of them. It was just like being on holiday. To really seize the feeling, I smashed my kneecaps into the back of the chair in front of me and drank a lot of really awful luke-warm coffee then went and stood on one leg in the toilet and peed on the floor**.
Can't wait til tomorrow!
* gross misrepresentation of the truth for the purposes of sophistry.
** ditto.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
you could always reply to his audience participation with your own brand of vaguely related drivel
eg. suggesting that an understanding of feng shui would greatly assist in waiting room harmony
Don't tempt me! I almost made an idiot of myself today when he asked if anybody knew what Bruxism was.
Speaking of OT.
What's the opposite of Christopher Walken?
Christopher Reeves.
-L
Hey don't come in here stealing my thunder with funny jokes like that! Get your own blog! I'm the star round these parts!
I worked in aged care for a little less than 5 years. I have NEVER been punched so much or had to deal with faecal matter so often in my life. It is not an easy job and I have nothing but the highest amount of respect for anybody who does that kind of work and can still smile about it.
Okay, that's a fair enough reality check Jamie. What you say carries a lot of weight with me since I know you have actual real world experience.
My own personal experience of dealing with people who are confused and delirious was incredibly stressful and upsetting. I certainly don't want to repeat it but it is almost inevitable that I will. Hopefully I'll be able to do it well.
If you're the PTR I remember from school I think you'll do a damn good job of it. :)
Post a Comment