Indian Medic

Its been three weeks already, since I started my new job. Can’t believe how time has just flown by. This is the first real breather I have had in all of the three weeks. Forty-eight blissful hours away from the chaotic environment of the hospital, thanks to a government holiday paired with a Sunday. I have caught up with all the sleep I needed and did away with a lot of routine work that had been pending, bills and all. So thought I might as well post something.

The work is good. Its hardcore hands on practical internal medicine, including the mandatory scutwork and paper-pushing. Work amounts to anything between 100-110 hours a week, which includes two 36-hour shifts. Does not seem like much, but there is no slack whatsoever in the pace of the work when the duty is on.

I have been allotted quarters and everything in the hospital itself, but I prefer to come home when I can, no matter how late the hour, just to be with the family. I have adjusted to the strenuous hours, but there are the inevitable complications to putting the body through the paces of residency. Acidity, constipation, occasional insomnia and most of all time disorientation. How many times have I had to double check the dates I write in my post call shift. My mind just refuses to register that a twenty-four hour period with its specific date and day has passed. Days and nights blend into each other and soon its weekend again. Lucky if I am not on call, but if I am, its unparalleled exhaustion.

More often than not when I start on a new job or a rotation, or any endeavor for that matter, which needs me to put in enormous amounts of time, energy and effort, I tend to dream about it all night long. It happened during my internship and during my last job. I would have vivid dreams of whatever happened that day, down to the last detail. I can’t stress enough how realistic these dreams can be. If I wake up in the middle of the night, the disorientation I feel is awful. Bad night’s sleep equals exhaustion and poor performance in the day.

For the initial two weeks of starting this job, I suppose I was too exhausted for the dreams to occur. I would nod off anywhere I hit horizontal. Now that I am coping better, the dreams have started. It’s highly disconcerting. This phase will take at least a couple of more weeks to pass off.

Meanwhile I don’t find much time to study as I had planned. Invariably I am too tired to concentrate, even if I somehow find the time to crack a book.

Things are far from settled. Hope to have something better to report in the next post.