More Boring Rants From Anonymous Eccentrics

It's Been A While...

2010-02-14T09:14:00.002+11:00

I have been through a blogging 'funk'. For some reason, my desire to write withered away as the end of the year approached, and has not really returned. I simply checked in to peruse other blogs linked to mine. It's not that things aren't happening that deserve to be solidified and immortalised in literary form; it's just that I'm not feeling particularly qualified to capture them. What can you do...

Let's begin:

• I am now a psychiatry registrar. Essentially this means the two past years of general medical experience now mean very little, and I'm starting from scratch again as an 'intern' (but with much better pay). In many ways it would've been easier to transit into physician training - I was at the point where I was confident enough to be a medical registrar. However, after four weeks of psychiatry, I can breathe a sigh of relief and confidently say that this work is far more fascinating. Maybe I'll even feel useful in a year's time. And if I decide psychiatry is not for me, I can always change career paths. It's not too late.

• I crashed my car. It was the first time ever, and it was my fault. Driving west along the M4 after lectures at Cumberland during peak hour, I saw the brake lights from the car in front of me blink on. I put my brakes on as well, and then realised at the last minute that it wasn't enough. I floored the brake, smelt the burning rubber and heard the squeal of my tires, and then rear-ended the car in front.

I got out of my car to make sure the driver in front was okay, and then realised he'd actually hit the car in front of him (and much harder - his airbags went off). I had seen his brake lights and assumed he was slowing down, when he had actually hit a car and therefore come to a sudden and complete stop.

So, my car is off to the smash repairs. The damage is only structural as I hit at low speed. Plus I assume I'm paying for the rear end damage to the guy's car in front as well (which was a small dent - I'm lucky). The guy in front will be paying for the very considerable damage to his bonnet, because he crashed his car before I crashed mine.

No one was hurt.

Welcome To The West Coast

2009-09-16T02:02:00.002+10:00

I woke up this morning feeling a lot better than yesterday, which was a struggle to be honest. I arrived at LA airport and was picked up by my sister, and shown around San Fernando Valley.

Essentially LA looks like a a massive version of Sydney, except with a smaller CBD (although probably more mini-CBDs a la Parramatta). The first thing I noticed at the airport was only Black and Latino people working outside to shift luggage. That trend continued in the valley - no Whiteys raking the gardens or working on the buildings.

In the afternoon I walked around to try to stay awake, and in the evening we drove up the Hollywood hills and looked at a whole bunch of pretentious houses. Then we stopped at a couple of lookouts, which proudly displayed the vast sprawl of LA at night (beautiful - surprisingly...).

Then, we did a quick take of Hollywood Boulevard, saw the walk of fame and the Chinese Theatre, but I didn't get to stalk any celebrities. Pity.

Oh, and the bread is disgustingly sweet.

Be Well

2009-09-12T12:00:00.003+10:00

Blogging has lost its unique flavour recently, but I thought I should mention my impending holiday to the United States.

I'll be spending a week in Los Angeles, and a week in New York. Wasn't really my first choice of destination overseas, but the opportunity arose and so I grabbed it (placing other 'projects' on hold, so to speak).

I'm really looking forward to being in the presence of so many icons previously limited to glaring two-dimensional television sets. I was talked into visiting Disneyland, even though initially I was against it. I'll take a stroll along Sunset Boulevard just so I can absorb some glamour and take a tacky photo of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Maybe I'll even take a couple of days to see the Grand Canyon... who knows.

The height (quite literally) of my excursion will be Kingda-Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. This unusually named roller coaster is the world's highest and fastest, and is my Mecca.

Here is a picture of my God...

I Love You More Than...

2009-08-21T17:10:00.003+10:00

And so my old faithful G5 has been offline for a while now, and there seems little likelihood of it being repaired. It took a while to come to terms with the end of our friendship, which was standing solid at five years, but I've now come to realise that all good friendships endure through the hard times and may in fact be strengthened.

I will always remember my beautiful MegaBitch. May she rest in peace.

Here is a memorial dedication to Megabitch. Tissues recommended.

But the circle of life continues unabated, and the phoenix has risen from the ashes in the form of MicroBitch. She will arrive on Monday afternoon, and although she will never be able to replace MegaBitch perhaps someday she will heal my poor broken heart.

Something From The Past...

2009-08-10T11:36:00.002+10:00

...always make me sentimental. Oh, the sentiment.

An old friend from Japan recently found me on Facebook. This is the friend who hand-painted a scroll of the Yamaboko from the Gion festival in Kyoto, which is hanging up in my room. If you have been in my room, chances are I have forced you to admire this scroll, and no doubt explained it's significance in tedious detail.

My old friend hasn't seen me since 2003. The first thing she told me is that when I was in Japan I was a boy, but now I have grown up and become a man.

Surprisingly, this wasn't funny, and I didn't immediately think of some way to laugh at what my friends would say if they heard her comment. Instead, I thought that however immature I am now, I must have been far more so when I was 22.

I like the thought that I am changing in this way, because when I first heard that people don't change, I foolishly believed it.

Poor naive Cam.

What Is The Matrix?

2009-08-04T18:18:00.003+10:00

I'm here at my mother's house, and nobody is at home. My computer is in the background, coughing and spluttering as I desperately try to save it from being replaced by a newer, more advanced model.

Today was a day of advancement:
• I bought a new bed, a queen size ensemble that will be delivered on Monday. My life in all it's modern comforts is finally complete.
• I bought a new phone, a glistening silver beacon of modern technology. I'm struggling to learn how to use the damn thing, and I'm afraid I may have to copy my entire inventory of phone numbers onto paper, and then reenter them in one at a time, but I'm feeling patient today. As a rule I usually don't delete numbers (you never know when you're going to need them), but I might thin out the list. After all, I have Facebook now.
• I took Older Bro's useful and unorthodox advice and dissected my computer. Transplanting some internal organs into external casings is like playing God.

Older Bro just came home, so I'm going to finish this up here and go and chat to him. He's telling me about his aural exam...

Dear You,

2009-07-22T23:55:00.003+10:00

Shooting up junk is a choice.

Eating junk is a choice.

Dropping your small child from a bridge is a choice.

But in many ways it isn't. And if you dismiss a poor choice as "they're own fucking fault", I feel sorry for you. You'll never really understand the way another human being thinks who's "wired" differently to you. This means you'll only ever relate to those people who are more or less you in a different suit. What a banal and boring world that would be.

But I have looked into the eyes of a heroin addict and seen a decent human being - in some ways more so than myself. Perhaps I could have been him if I grew up in a different environment, instead of the doctor trying to keep him alive.

And if society looked down on me, why on earth would I want to rejoin it?

I Do Believe It's About Time For A Series Of Expletives

2009-07-12T13:59:00.005+10:00

So without further ado, fuck you...

... to my boss, for being unfair during my midterm assessment and then superciliously raising his eyebrows like a total dick when I didn't immediately agree with his assessment.

... to the baby-boomer generation, for buying up so much property that it becomes difficult for GenY (who are much poorer by comparison).

... to every single person who only chatted to me because they wanted to get in my pants, and when they realised it wasn't going to happen within the next six minutes, moved off because I must be that boring and obnoxious in person.

... to the worst human being on earth; a sickening excuse for a human being who, if they had any morality and decency within their cold black soul, will look back with shame and regret on what they did to my naivete and trust. This person deserves a second, louder fuck you.

... to Tony Abbott. May he never make me queasy by wearing lycra ever EVER again.

... to all the GPs who sent patients with flu-like symptoms to emergency without even doing a decent history first. We all know you're just being lazy.

... to Michael Jackson's father. I hope that you were misrepresented, but I doubt it.

... to the people who successfully pushed the phrase 'climate change', in favour of 'global warming'. Don't soften it down so you can continue to reap record-breaking profits each year. Call it what it is, and then see if you can live with yourself.

... to the man who cut his fifteen year old son. That boy will need reconstructive surgery to his arm. What, the boy is out of control? Well, he wasn't the one with the knife, was he?

... to every single wanker who automatically assumes that going into psychiatry is an easy or lazy option, or for people who can't understand medicine. Newsflash: maybe some of us actually want to do psyche, so you can kiss my arse.

... to that person who drove at 60kph for the entire length of that 80 zone when I was late for work. You only get a small fuck you because you probably had a good reason.

... to that Mt Druitt car owner who proudly displayed the words 'Fuck Off We're Full' on the back of their car. Have you even been overseas before? Have you seen the conditions that most of the world have to live in? People don't come half way across the world in search of a better life just so they can engage in petty criminal activities and piss you off. Open up your fucking mind for once.

Aw... Cam's Sick. Boo Effin' Hoo.

2009-07-05T12:32:00.004+10:00

Life is supposedly all about experiences. If so, I've had about all the experiences I can handle for a short while.

After seeing countless patients with flu-like symptoms, and being nicknamed the 'pig doctor' at work (or piggy), yesterday morning I finally developed my very own personal set of symptoms - lethargy, generalised aches and pains, headache, lack of appetite, and occasional hot/cold flushes.

I called up ED to say I was sick, but the person who answered was the same senior douchebag who told me that a fractured toe is a poor excuse to take a day off. With all due respect to him, he didn't have to sleep with the pain after walking around on it all day. As you may have guessed, Mt Druitt ED is chronically understaffed, so there is an enormous push to grab a steth and turn up. No excuses.

When Senior Douchebag answered the phone, I just hung up and went in to work, and actually felt a bit better in the early afternoon (temp only 37.5 - borderline), but by the evening it all started to go a little awry. Even one of my patients asked if I was feeling alright. It gets a little embarrassing when patients start to comment that you look sick.

So I discharged my last patient and drove home after doing only seven hours of my ten hour shift.

Problem is, for some bizarre inexplicable reason, I sometimes get heartburn when I have a viral infection. And it came on something severe this time. After taking every medication I could get my hands on to relieve the pain and getting no sleep, at 3am I ended up driving to Hawkesbury ED and asked for some IV pantoprazole. It worked, thank Jeebus.

In retrospect, I never get heartburn pain unless I have a cold or something similar. Perhaps something to do with a pro-inflammatory state relaxing my lower oesophageal sphincter? Last time it happened was when I had to drive to Bowral to play at a wedding. I got the sniffles in the morning, and the reflux pain followed soon after. Nothing really seems to help for longer than five or ten minutes, and the pain can get so effing severe. I think from now on I'll just go straight for the IV meds to prevent any more nights of hell.

Needless to say, I am not working today. If anything, the joint pain has gotten a little worse. But no reflux pain! I can take anything but the fucking reflux pain.

Flight of the Conchords- Business Time HIGH QUALITY

2009-06-25T13:46:00.001+10:00

It's business time...

Denial...

2009-06-17T23:00:00.003+10:00

...is a way for the guilty to remain sane.

I recently had a conversation with one of my immediate bosses that stunned me. He was an intelligent, articulate man, perhaps a little arrogant, who seemed to have enough worldliness about him to comment on any situation.

We discussed infidelity.

He told me he once had an affair with a married woman. He was single at the time, so there was no wrongdoing on his behalf. That brief sexual interlude rekindled the woman's stalling relationship. She is now much happier for the experience. Justify, justify, justify.

But in my opinion it was still wrong. Here are some issues I have with this situation:

1. If I encourage someone else to do something wrong, I am not a nice person, even if I have not personally dirtied my hands.

2. If my boss was married and his wife had an affair, would he feel no blame to the faceless dude who boinked his wife?

3. What's the real reason this woman is now happier in her marriage? I think if she felt that an extramarital affair was what gave it extra zing, she should have discussed the possibility of an open relationship with her husband first. Instead, she's lying to him and if she thinks dishonesty is the key to relationship success she's in denial.

I see dishonesty all the time and it has poisoned me. I simply do not trust people I meet because everyone will do whatever they can to avoid admitting they are a rotten person, including denial, justification, and slander.

I am no better. In Japan I once got drunk and pashed a girl who I knew had a boyfriend. I was so ashamed afterwards, and of course blamed the alcohol. Dear Cameron, you were in denial because you didn't want to admit that you are a jerk, plain and simple.

My apologies to the boyfriend.

I Have Acquired...

2009-06-09T09:24:00.002+10:00

...something that may simultaneously free and imprison me.

It threatens to break my moral integrity, but allows me to reach out and connect to the world around me with unsurpassed ease.

It's not a pony.

Live, But Don't Learn

2009-06-06T10:22:00.002+10:00

It's a new day.

But I am the same stupid person I've always been.

Who likes metaphors? Well, lets just say that my hand is charred beyond recognition because I keep on naively putting my hand right back in that fire.

It's so disappointing, especially after I attended that fire safety drill last year. I even got to turn on one of those high pressure water hoses.

New Ground And Butt-Jabbing

2009-05-25T21:41:00.002+10:00

I went house-hunting last weekend. And by house-hunting, I mean small apartment hunting somewhere in the Indian metropolis of Westmead, where all the apartment buildings smell intoxicatingly like what I imagine a romanticised life in Kolkata would be like.

I dragged my mother along. Boy, was that a smart move. I would've just looked at the first place and thought: this'll do, and thrown my 10% deposit at the real estate agent. My formidable and intelligent mother used her critical eye and years of experience to spot flaws in each and every potential home. She even turned on all the taps (and showers) to check out water pressure and adequate drainage design.

I only really found one unit that I liked, but in waiting to get the contract emailed to me, I found out that some creep already laid down a deposit. Sneaky bastards.

Actually, there's a second apartment I kind of like, but it's on like the fourth floor of a complex and there are no lifts, which means all bulky furniture would have to be carried painfully up several flights of stairs. I might swing by the real estate to see if that unit was sold. By the way, not impressed with real estate agencies or their greasy sales staff.

In other news, there was an altercation between two patients on the ward today. One decided to strangle the other with a scarf. Scarf victim didn't like that for some reason and started screaming. I stood dumbfounded while an exceptional nurse quickly launched in to break them apart. Lots of staff held her down and I jabbed her with a sedative agent, but if anyone looked closely I'm sure they would've seen my hands shaking. I'm really not a very brave boy.

I wish...

2009-05-19T22:20:00.002+10:00

...that I could read people's minds.

I have often had difficulty reading people, and am pretty naive when it comes to the bitter twisted things people do.

I believe that being able to pick up on thought waves will alleviate this handicap I seem to have.

I will set about inventing a device to aid me in this endeavour.

Patience Is No Virtue In My House

2009-05-08T21:21:00.003+10:00

Sometimes, when it seems like you mean less to most people than what they wipe from their ring, it is certainly satisfying to realise that you're worth much more than you thought (and others wanted you to believe).

A doctor friend of mine has had, shall we say, a less than pleasant experience working at Westmead. Her very first term as a doctor was a nightmare owing to her immediate senior being clueless and unsupportive. Once during that inaugural rotation she actually fainted on the ward from not being able to take a break and eat something.

Term after term this talented girl (and a far more knowledgeable resident than myself) scored dismal work hours and poor experiences. And despite several unanswered complaints to the resident support unit, she endured.

This current term (Term 2, Year 2) she was looking forward to a surgical term well known to have a relaxed pace. Until that is, she was forcibly swapped with someone else and found herself doing respiratory. She was to be teamed up with a notorious fellow resident: a belligerent fifty-year old who failed his internship because he was, for lack of a better word, incompetent. I have had several dealings with this middle-aged resident. None were pleasant.

Needless to say, my talented friend found herself in a busy respiratory term clashing with a difficult man. There were several incidents which were described as physically threatening, and on more than one occasion my friend would start crying in private when she explained the dire situation she was in.

And, despite multiple complaints (added to supposedly many other complaints from previous terms), resident support did sweet fuck all to maintain a safe, relatively harmonious workplace environment.

Until, that is, my friend drafted a resignation letter and threatened to quit. And oh so miraculously, the incompetent pugnacious male doctor was transferred to a different term and peace was restored. It happened surprisingly fast.

Lessons learnt:
1. Even though we are at the bottom of the pecking order and frequently treated like expendable garbage, we are still DOCTORS and therefore our signatures are required on a lot of paperwork, and our knowledge is required to review patients so that the more senior doctors do not get bogged down.
2. The support unit does not like it to be known that resident doctors are in fact AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE HOSPITAL.
3. It is the hospital's worst nightmare that resident staff realise that they are in fact worthwhile and threaten to quit.

Yeah... fight the system.

Activity Salad

2009-05-02T10:19:00.004+10:00

I love hanging out with hippies and other open-minded people.

Last weekend I was invited to a university buddy's house for a day of strange activities with strange people. The idea was that people come and bring something to the event: food, talent, whatever, and share it with everyone. How could I have drifted away from my quirky bunch of lovable misfit med-student friends? I forgot how unique they all are.

The event included a musical jam session based on simplistic yet catchy chord structures, jumbled blues and a fuckload of percussion, Brazilian jiujitsu, Turkish food and coffee from various regions of the world, kickboxing, meditation, tango classes, and mountain bushwalks with bongo drums and Frank Sinatra tunes.

I also heard a woman demonstrate her remarkable ability to 'sing' a Tibetan drone with two different tones (and I have no idea how to explain that in anatomical terms). It sounded like a mellifluous didgeridoo and has so much potential.

This coming weekend will be boring by comparison...

Ahuacatl

2009-04-20T15:10:00.003+10:00

Just for future reference, avocado and peanut butter do not mesh well together. It's not entirely sickening, but definitely not one-hat rating either.

Avocado might possibly be my favourite fruit, even though wikipedia rudely asserts that it is an evolutionary oddity. Shame on you wikipedia for destroying my confidence in your omnipresence.

Many things go well with avocado. These include, but are not limited to:

1. Lime or lemon juice
2. Tomato
3. Sun-dried tomato
4. Salt and vinger chips
5. Tofutti cream cheese
6. Garlic
7. Any combination of the above

I'd like to believe that Subway introduced avocado on their menu solely because I complained repeatedly that a sub is otherwise incomplete without avomacado smeared on it.

Mmmmm...

Whatever

2009-04-14T22:30:00.002+10:00

I can't count how many times I've wanted to quit my job, but working fifteen hours on Easter Sunday made me want to quit on the spot.

I did the unthinkable and yelled at a nurse. I had sick patient after sick bloody patient in the three cardio wards, and haematology kept on paging because 'there's a lot of things to do here'. After one particular sarcastic page, I snapped and shouted that if they paged me one more time without good reason I would boycott their ward.

Newsflash: if I'm not turning up to your ward fast enough for YOU it's not 'cause I'm lazy, it's 'cause I'm fucking busy. Very tired, very hungry Cam with full bladder and dehydration headache plus repeated insensitive pages that slow me down because I have to stop what I'm doing and find a phone = very fucking angry Cam.

And when I finally got to haematology ward, two nurses were sitting on their arses chatting, and I saw red. If they were so insistent on me getting here for all these supposedly urgent jobs, then they could have prepared the paperwork for me to sign so I could clear their ward easier.

I really wish that nurse was forced to do the overtime AR shift (which covers cardiology and haematology wards for fifteen hours) just once, and then they might understand why I can't turn up to their ward whenever they ask for it. Not that nursing is a bludge- in fact it most certainly isn't, but at least there are enough nurses to cover each other so they can go for a break, and at least they don't have to carry a pager, so they can escape from the madness when they need to without being called back.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, not one of the jobs on the haematology list was urgent.

Calm blue ocean.
Calm blue ocean.
Calm blue ocean.

Daddy, You Bastard, I'm Through

2009-04-05T17:31:00.002+10:00

The vampire who said he was you and drank my blood for a year.

Psychotica

2009-03-31T21:32:00.002+11:00

The ward is full of eccentric characters, and I'm not talking about the patients. After two days on psyche ward, my first thoughts are that this is not what I expected. I have not really had any chance to absorb any psyche. My days are instead filled with endless consults to medical teams, general reviews of patients with pain, rash, dizziness, eye problems etc.

Note: a consult is a referral to another team. They assess the patient and give us their recommendations, but we are ultimately responsible for the patient.

Note 2: consults mean more work for doctors who are already stretched thin. A poorly constructed consult is therefore liable to bring forth the cranky side in senior doctors.

Note 3: resident medical officers (i.e. myself) are the ones expected to draft the consult, page the relevant specialty team, and convince them that their time is not too precious to come and see the patient.

I hate to say this, but I'm really disliking some of the work put on me by the psyche registrars. They ask for medical teams to be involved in some patients, but are vague and not really forthright why. This is very important, because if I don't understand why another team needs to be involved, I'm going to have a pretty tough time convincing a specialty registrar to waste time by looking over the patient. I've been drafting consults for fourteen months now, so I don't ask why unless there's a really good reason.

For example, say a 58 year old male presents with acute psychotic features and is admitted to the psyche ward. It is noted in his past history that he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Sure enough, I am asked to do a respiratory consult. I know that a respiratory doctor will not even consider coming to see the patient unless some spirometry and an arterial blood gases is performed. And if the patient is already on the right meds and not in acute respiratory distress, what's the point in coming to see the patient? What are they going to correct? And if I know that the consult is pointless, I have a hard time sounding like I really want the respiratory team to waste their precious time to come over.

And yet, it seems to me that sometimes the psyche guys want medical teams to be involved just because the patient has a disease, even if it is stable and optimised with the correct therapy.

To cut a long story short, I think the psyche regs should back off a little and let me manage the medical side of the patients. If there actually is a concern, then perhaps I'll get a consult. If everything is stable (or only requires minor tweaking), I'm quite happy to monitor them myself.

And in the meantime, not getting an awful lot of psyche exposure. At least the patients are interesting...

The Day After

2009-03-19T21:42:00.007+11:00

What do you do with sensitive information that was offered in a surreal and dim environment, but now seems so fragile and vulnerable in the piercingly bright tomorrow morning?

On Friday evening I finished work as usual and traipsed off with a couple of friends to a nearby place for dinner. These friends are both extraordinary people who appreciate subtle greys and see the world with open eyes, and they are so understanding that our conversations quickly rejected the usual crap about weather and work, and became deep and revealing.

I love conversations that strip away social niceties and safe boundaries, with people who are willing to create an environment at the dinner table that raises a metaphorical wall of sorts that seems to allow you to say anything inside it and be heard without judgment or retribution. It's a skill worth developing.

One of these people was brave enough to tell me they once had a crush on me; I of course had no idea. I was flattered and reveled in their willingness to expose such intimate knowledge, and wanted to tell them so, but instead I told them about someone who had crept beneath my skin and dug in with claws, and who I am frustratingly unable to shake free of.

We have both said something very personal to each other- something potentially incriminating. The real test of character is what we choose to do with what we know. I trust her implicitly; she will not tell anyone.

The next day, in broad daylight, we saw each other again. But it was different. The script was reset and the mood lighting was gone, and raw expression was replaced by discomfort and politeness. And then she left before I could somehow reassure her that I can be trusted, and that I appreciate and respect how expressive she was.

After all, I want to encourage people to be more open about themselves.

Emo rating: 9/10

I Am In Love...

2009-03-14T09:31:00.005+11:00

...And let it never be said that I am superficial.

This adorable little creature is a pug puppy called Igor, and he has very effortlessly stolen my heart.

As per Lizzie Browning, How do I love thee! Let me count the ways...

I love thee even though you have frequently used my room as a toilet

I love thy improbable and unusual tendency to ALWAYS jump directly onto my nads whenever I'm sitting down and you want a hug

I love thy cavernous and insatiable hunger, which prompts thee to hear me pottering in the kitchen from any corner of the house

I love thy penchant for sitting on my feet, rather than the floor tiles (which are probably a little too cold for thy hairy little bottom)

I love thee even though one of the Wii nunchucks mysteriously developed little doggie sized teeth marks and had to be replaced

I love thy grandiose desire for active play, which, even after ten minutes of chasing you around the living room until I am breathless, prompts you to whimper and cry when the fun is over

I love thy curly little tail, compact little snout, floppy ears, and fat little belly

I love it that thou art always unconditionally ecstatic when I get home, even if I'm tired from a killer shift at work, or if I'm reeking from sweat after going for a jog

I love thy little puppy proclivities, which include (but are certainly not limited to) licking and chewing on any finger, toe, earlobe, or tuft of hair within your range of vision

I love it that you conveniently only obey the command 'sit' when you think there is food in my hand (or in my mouth)

I love thy way of sitting, which, unlike most four-legged animals that fold up their legs and crouch, involves you flopping your back legs straight out in front of you and quite literally sitting on your arse

I love most of all that time of day when you are worn out and sleepy from chasing and destroying every moving object in the house, and are content to curl up next to myself with half-closed eyes and soft undulating snores

Like, Omg 'N' Stuff...

2009-03-07T00:34:00.002+11:00

...An earthquake in Melbourne!

I have an unusual fascination with earthquakes. I remember being nutty about them as far back as in primary school, when I would destroy entire miniature block cities by shaking their foundations and making low-pitched tremulous noises. The earthquake simulator at Questacon was my Mecca. And I was touched by the face of God three times in Japan.

But today He chose to bless Melbourne and not me. Today my angry earthen God turned His back on His loyal and most humble follower. Today I am alone.

Only Twenty-Eight

2009-03-02T22:48:00.003+11:00

Heart trembling, I signed up to join the World Health Organisation tonight, thinking that next year may be the year I leap-frog away from Australia, using the skills I have painfully gained over the last eight years to experience new cultures and broaden my hungry mind.

Then I saw the years of experience required, NOT recommended, for each job position.

Hmmm... I think I my be aiming a little too high. My feet need to somehow drift back to earth again before I go traipsing off to some romanticised poverty-stricken location to catch malaria and lose five kilos.

Only Twenty Five

2009-02-12T23:39:00.002+11:00

Some friends have Facebook tagged me to write twenty-five random things about myself. This task seems more like a blog, so time for my fingers to do the talking...

1. I'm 184cm and currently 69kg. This puts my BMI roughly around 20.5. Note: I'm too lazy to confirm that with a calculator.

2. I can't really decide what colour my eyes are. They tend to shift somewhere between grey and blue, with an orange spiculated ring around the pupils that someone once described as looking like a solar eclipse.

3. I am a second year doctor currently working in respiratory.

4. I rarely lose my temper, and always regret doing so.

5. Someone once described me as a "cold, emotionless shell of a human being". I believe this is the opposite of who I am.

6. Around the time of my twenty-fifth birthday and with a seven day transition period, I switched from a full diet to a diet consisting of no meat, milk, eggs, or gelatine.

7. I naively thought that doing this would win me praise for being so proactive about caring for my health, animal ethics, and the environment. To this day I can count the number of people who did on one hand.

8. I believe that if you are aware that a shop clerk has charged you less for an item than what you should be paying, and you don't point this out, it is almost the same as stealing.

9. I have one full brother, two half-brothers, one half-sister, two step-sisters, and one step-brother. We inhabit a wide spectrum of personality types.

10. Although I am often gregarious, this is probably a cover to hide how much I am frightened by intimacy.

11. When I was a young boy, I shot a rabbit on my Grandfather's farm. It did not die instantly, but instead left a bloody trail as it retreated into it's warren. I will never shoot another animal.

12. I am the only one of my high school friends who is not in a stable long-term relationship. I believe this possibly suggests a serious personality defect or disorder.

13. I will take off my glasses and wear my iPod so that I don't have to see or hear anything beyond my immediate boundaries.

14. I have very little interest in what most people think of me. Having said that...

15. It surprises me that a single person can have such power over the way I feel.

16. I would like to join an international organisation and practice medicine in the global village.

17. When I was very young, I once got so angry at the family kitten I picked it up and threw it on the floor. When I saw that its mouth was bleeding, I started crying, picked it up and carried it to my mother.

18. The fact that so much changes with each year sometimes completely overwhelms me.

19. I frequently overanalyse situations. I am extremely jealous of people who do not do this and are able to quickly move on to a more favourable situation.

20. My first grandparent died while I was in Japan at the Aoi-Matsuri festival. I didn't attend his funeral.

21. Although my mother would not believe me if I told her, I am a cuddle whore.

22. For a long time, my favourite song was One, by Lamb. Now this song is banal. It worries me that things I like become less potent as they age.

23. I no longer believe that an apology can solve any complicated situation.

24. I DO now believe that infidelity is a common act, and not just confined to a few unlucky couples or families.

25. I have played the piano for twenty-two years; I have won multiple trophies, earned a fair chunk of cash, and made some women cry (which is a bewildering and occasionally uncomfortable situation).

Backwards

2009-02-07T01:27:00.004+11:00

I am bitterly disappointed. Coffee and then dinner in Newtown this evening with friends should have been an awesome affair, but was disrupted by intermittent thoughts about who my guardian angel might be. Anticipating a thousand different scenarios, I logged on as soon as I got home, only to find my email account filled with work stuff.

-This section has been censored due to Creamboy's bizarre antics going horribly awry and possibly creating irreparable damage-

The Fifth Floor On B-Block

2009-02-03T20:38:00.003+11:00

Good news: I got to leave at six today, which means I only did a ten hour shift, plus I got time to have a decent lunch break too! Still didn't leave early enough to make it to the pool before it closed, but hopefully tomorrow.

Albeit grudgingly, I have to admit that respiratory ward is a pretty vibrant place. The ward clerk is a stern old-school type who was the first employed ward clerk when Westmead hospital opened. She has already told the residents some pretty interesting stories about how the hospital has changed over the years, plus when I can't find something (which is a daily thing) she points me in the right direction and tells me I'm a doofus. There is also a respiratory nurse consultant with a soft Italian accent who picks up the slack when I'm overrun and getting stressed. I owe her big, and it's only the third week in.

And medical high dependency is right next door, where the nurses are efficient and proactive. I also know an awesome nurse from Geriatrics who is transferring to high dependency this week. She was an EN, but recently became registered, although I admit the whole nursing hierarchy still confuses me. I keep on asking the other nurses if she's started yet, which has prompted the entire ward to start gossiping about whether or not I have a thing for her. They're way off, but my protests are universally ignored. At any rate, I'm very proud of her, but it would probably be patronising to say that aloud.

So I'll just keep quiet- a skill I should have tried to master a long time ago.

And On The Seventh Day

2009-01-30T22:51:00.003+11:00

Basking in the searing heat and enveloped in my own little musical world, I saw you walking away from me, and I suddenly realised how overexposed the world was and how lightheaded it made me feel.

Oh god, now I'm writing wistful sentences in a painfully expressive emotional state. I blame long work hours and not enough time to eat properly.

In other news, respiratory medicine would be good if I had enough time to be systematic and thorough. As it is, I fly by the seat of my pants, desperately doing what I can to stay afloat. This is not medicine.

I was so exhausted I missed a couple of stupid simple things this afternoon. If only my patients knew how carelessly tired their resident doctor was, they'd pack up and go private, where the doctors (hopefully) haven't clocked up ridiculous hours in a supposedly thirty-eight hour work week. And all I want is to leave only a little bit late so that I can do some laps before the pool closes, but apparently it's unreasonable to leave before seven each day.

Fuck you public health system. I want my life back.

2753

2009-01-15T22:05:00.002+11:00

I moved on the weekend.

My new home? None other than the quaint little country town of Richmond.

I've lived in three countries, two territories, and one state, but never before have I lived away from my family yet still within the Sydney basin. And I'm LOVIN' it.

I'm living with two friends and an achingly cute pug puppy. Everything is within a ten minute walk (including a pool so I can keep up with my swimming), and on the way home the town smells like KFC. There are little stickers reminding me that Australia is full and we shouldn't accept any more immigrants. A lady was sitting on a park bench on the way to the station this morning, and I swear she was still there twelve hours later when I was walking home again. There are more cows than houses on the train trip in. That last part was a lie, but I wish it was true.

Also, next week the new cohort of interns come into being, and I become a full resident. The most useful part of this transition is that my pay goes up accordingly.

Ker-ching.

Yeah Baby!

2009-01-05T21:49:00.007+11:00

Just got back from a long weekend by the beach at the holiday house down south at Ulladulla. This is certainly something I must do more often.

Anywho, why type when pictures create a more appealing image. These are my favourites (although they're all on Facebook):

Love this shot. Joel couldn't look sleazier as he moves in on his hottie woman.

We left a message so that the six-year-olds exploring the rock pools would always remember us.

Beck and I pretending the weather is great.

Joel and I thought we'd creatively decorate Nick's room. He loved it.

Beck enjoying a good read. The girl on the front cover scores high on the Tranny factor.

The crew outside the fish and chip shop by the beach.

This is by far my favourite shot. Joel on the beach, wearing more clothing than my grandmother would.

Cowboy Cam: by far the whitest thing on the beach.

Cute little hyperactive black kitty bounced around the front yard before springing up a tree and then posing for the camera.

Joel getting far too excited about porn. Incidentally, those ads he's tearing up in this shot somehow found their way into my wallet, later on falling out when I used my visa card at hospital. Not funny. Maybe a little.

Why Does Everyone Want To Hear The Canon In D?

2008-12-31T19:25:00.002+11:00

Apparently I looked like a drowned rat. So said the singer.

I was blessed with four days off over Christmas: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and the two weekend days. And it was sort of spoiled by two events. One was a wedding. The other was a virus.

I was called by my pimp/singer in early December to ask if I could play at a wedding. It was short notice and coming into the holiday season, so I felt sorry for the engaged couple's stress levels and said yes. My singer and I hooked up and practiced the music they wanted (some of which they didn't decide on 'til a week before), but I regretted saying yes 'cause I really wanted those four days off to relax.

On Boxing Day we had a day-before-the-event practice, but I came down with a bloody pesky cold virus. Playing the piano and blowing your nose at the same time is not an easy thing to perform smoothly.

The wedding was at a monastery in Berrima in the Southern Highlands, so we drove there in the morning of the 27th and didn't get back until 8 in the evening, and the entire time I was sniffing and coughing, with an attractive looking reddened nose, and this bizarre form of unbearable heartburn pain that I only seem to get when I have a cold. Of course it rained as well, so we got wet lugging the equipment from a grotto (which was where the wedding was supposed to be performed at) to the nearby church.

In retrospect, I really would have preferred to have stayed at home and rested, but all's well that ends well, and no one should be denied the right to hear my singer at their wedding. She really does have an extraordinary voice!

The People I Work With

2008-12-26T11:06:00.002+11:00

I've done this for every other rotation; why stop now?

Swallow is a gentle attractive blonde who speaks in calm musical phrases. All the wisdom of the world seems to rest contentedly within the frames of her glasses. She is not quite so openly gregarious as others, however the effort required to get to know her reaps its own reward several fold. The playfulness of her character is like a butterful, subtle and desultory.

Cowboy is tall, with dark features and a lopsided smile. He has a swagger that would suit a campy Wild West drama, and a sense of humour in keeping with a young male mind who has untapped ambition. I would invite him out for a beer and wish him all the best, but apparently one does not do or say these awkward things out loud.

Narcissus is confident and also insecure, willing to relax traditions, and has an eye for beauty. The nurses seem to see a side of him that I am blind to. People say we look similar- this is because they do not look hard enough. More so than most people, he seems to have inner demons built into his character, and pushes buttons in an abstract, imaginative way. Sometimes this has unwanted consequences.

Frenchie is herself, multiplied several times. She is naive and precocious, however this is the core of her charm. Her actions speak softer than other people's words. A painter would have difficulty capturing her essence in two dimensions; every changing angle would invoke a different perception of her character.

J-Dog is my registrar. Her face is lit up by a smile almost every time I see her, and she laughs easily and liberally. She is selfless and knowledgeable, and allows me to bounce ideas off her without getting angry. Unlike myself, she has a rich life beyond work, 'though I'm too shy to ask questions about it.

Orlean is a water-carrier. This is reflected in his being and the manner in which he holds himself. It is incredibly difficult to read him (although I'm probably blind), and even more difficult to engage him in conversation, even though I'd like to get to know him better.

Samael brings a cornucopia of drugs with him to the ward. Officious and distant at first, he is a gentle and straight-forward person who seems fragile and unable to connect to others. For this reason I make an effort to say hi when I see him.

Red Hat is a stroke nurse. Her character is best described as effervescent and resonant. She laughed hardest when I told a dirty 'stroke-themed' joke to her ward. She is trusting and seems to enjoy her work more than most. Because of this, I would have difficulty not liking her. I also have difficulty not smiling when she's around, like her laughter is contagious.

Aye aye is a nurse. She has the scars of past surgery on her face, but to me this heightens her features. She is an efficient nurse and an intelligent human being, and I trust her decision-making abilities implicitly. Her personality is a gravitational well- it indiscriminately draws people towards it. This girl could certainly go far in her career.

Luna is possibly the most beautiful nurse on the ward. She is sweet and kind and tiny, and I have to struggle not to hug her on the ward just for being herself. She dresses pragmatically, which somehow adds an element of awkwardness, like she either doesn't realise how attractive she is, or is so confident of her beauty she has no problem diminishing it.

His Way

2008-12-20T10:12:00.002+11:00

Driving to Maccas with my little brother, who was wearing his girlfriend's scalp-hugging pink beanie, watching hard-core anal porn (loudly) on his laptop, and high as a kite from pulling cones, I realised that he's quite a strange little guy- but I'll sure miss him when he moves to the Gold Coast next year.

Why Break From Tradition...

2008-12-13T09:27:00.002+11:00

Last night I decided to finally check out what the Red Cow pub turns into on weekend evenings. Not impressed.

Essentially the open area is closed off, a couple of coloured flashing lights are turned on, and a mediocre DJ moves in, and suddenly Red Cow re-invents itself as Dirty Secrets. Oh, and everyone is charged ten bucks for the honour of standing there and taking it all in.

I really can't see how clubs get away with a cover charge. Is it playing on the primeval desire of young party-goers to rub up against each other and hopefully score a drunken fuck in the back seat of a cramped car? If so, I guess sex sells.

Pity I chose a rainy evening to see what all the fuss was about, because the turnout was pretty poor. So I sat at the back with some friends and a Corona, and watched the drama unfold on the dance floor:

There was a lone guy who looked like he was still wearing work clothes, churning away with his signature moves, obviously sending out messages that he was ready and willing. The most action he got was a couple of guys, who decided to have some kind of weird dance seizure in front of him. He mimicked them for a while, until they all got bored and moved off, which was pretty quickly. You can be gay for a couple of seconds 'cause it's funny, but any longer and that's just, like, too gay dude.

A group of xeroxed Riff guys strutted their collective stuff, which looked kind of like the floor was electrified and their shoes were made of copper. One of my friends said they looked like pinballs, or popcorn on a hotplate. Both analogies were apt. Actually I'm amazed one of them didn't crash into someone else and start a brawl.

A trio of chic girls with berets graced the dance floor with their off-centre attractive presence, and for a short time all male eyes were entranced. A couple of brave young studs even attempted to get the proverbial juices flowing with some light conversation and a private energetic performance. The three ladies were unimpressed and eventually disappeared, obviously content with their own company (for now). As The Streets so eloquently put it: they were fit, but gosh didn't they know it.

Throw in a couple of security guards who didn't mind checking out the array of fresh meat on offer, and the odd police officer weaving through the sparse crowd, and you have my Red Cow experience. I give it my lowest score ever: seven thumbs up.

When The Moon

2008-12-07T22:08:00.003+11:00

My long hair is gone! It takes three seconds to get my hair ready in the morning! Rock it on biyaaatch.

Long live my short scruffy hair.

And no, you don't get a photo. You'll have to come and see me in person.

I'm Feeling...

2008-12-05T23:30:00.002+11:00

...Pretty washed out tonight.

Our team is on call over the weekend, which means we'll most likely have a whole bunch of new patients on Monday. Knowing this, I wanted to organise as many discharge summaries as possible, so that I wouldn't be backed up with work come the new week. However, Geriatrics and order don't often see eye to eye.

Two patients were discharged today (and they take precedence over other work), and two patients died. One of the deceased was a Maltese gentleman with a wonderful, very caring family. This man had multi-organ failure, and eventually died at 4 in the afternoon after a gradual decline into somnolence. I walked in and certified his death, surrounded by his trusting and achingly beautiful family, who, over the course of five weeks, I've talked to almost every day about what's happening to their husband/father. Certifying death is that much harder when you know the patient and the family well.

The daughter cried and hugged me, and thanked me for helping the family during this difficult time, and I was upset, but pretended to be a professional and notified the GP, then kept myself busy doing the necessary paperwork. It's not the easiest job on earth, but it's certainly worthwhile.

I ate some food in hospital, and then locked myself in a room, busying myself with discharge paperwork before groggily emerging at 9. My brain doesn't function particularly well at night, so it was definitely time to go home.

Getting off the train at Emu station, I swung by O'Donoghue's to get some money out for tomorrow, and ended up staying for an hour, chatting with some people I knew peppered throughout the raucous crowd, and downing a quick beer before walking home.

And tomorrow? My long hair will be a thing of the past, like my Maltese gentleman patient. Goodbye Mr HG. We tried our best.

High Tea...

2008-11-30T01:17:00.002+11:00

...In the tea room at the Queen Victoria Building is most definitely not a peasant affair. Entering the domain of the wealthy and influential requires a certain panache that I simply don't possess. That said, I'm glad I bought a ticket for the med ball.

I was impressed with the quality of the service as well as the surrounds. After telling the staff I was vegan, not ten minutes later a three course meal was brought out before me that was pretty incredible. Alcohol was free, so I was plowed with repeated glasses of a decent white until my head became warm and fuzzy and I didn't mind clumsily stumbling with my two left feet on the dance floor.

I don't remember being particularly drunk, but at the end of the evening a friend decided to drive me home. I wasn't in the mood to argue, and so I promptly fell asleep in the back seat of the car. Thanks to her generosity, I didn't attempt to take a train home (where I would probably have fallen asleep at a station and been robbed and beaten up and so forth...).

Good times.

A Story

2008-11-27T22:34:00.004+11:00

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Creamboy. He left for work this morning as usual, except his hands were shaking so hard from fright he had difficulty taking his broken headphones out of his ears.

Creamboy went to work, and was busy doing things and talking to people. There was paperwork to do, patients to talk to, cannulas to put in, bloods and radiology to order and chase up. He was so busy, in fact, that he completely forgot about the morning.

And then, on the train trip home, Creamboy passed Blacktown and without warning the unwanted memory came flooding back.

And Creamboy's hands started shaking on the train.

Poor, pathetic Creamboy's face went red, as the person sitting around him tried not to stare. And silly Creamboy just sat there and pretended like nothing was wrong at all.

THE END

The Plan For 2009

2008-11-19T20:00:00.004+11:00

This year's roster has been a decent mix. My overall goal was to get a bit of experience in general medicine, and for the most part I've been pretty satisfied with what I was given. For those who forgot or want to know, my terms were: vascular surgery, Mt Druitt emergency, Bathurst general medicine, relief, and geriatrics (my current rotation).

The reason I bring this up is because my new roster has been delivered to me by mail! This year I was hoping to get more into some of the specialties to see if I liked anything. My prison for next year is framed by the following (in chronological order):

1. Respiratory

I wanted to do one of the core medical fields like cardio or resp, so I'm glad I got this, although I think I'll be constantly reminded of Ken and the circumstances surrounding his diagnosis of lung cancer. I was the pre-intern on the team that accepted his care, and when we finally diagnosed him as stage 4 (palliative only with a 5% one year survival), I was forbidden to tell my family, so I had to sit on that information for five days and pretend that I didn't know anything. Not fun.

2. Psychiatry

This was definitely big on my list, although by being irrational and a dick I've made a mess here (although I clumsily tried to apologise, not that it did any good dagnammit). I wish I could get along with everyone here, but I guess I'll settle for keeping my head down, being my usual benign self, and avoiding controversy as much as possible. Follow that mantra and hopefully I'll enjoy the term!

3. Mt Druitt Emergency

Bloody hell, I have this term again. I'm not much of a fan of emergency, but at least I know most of the people here. They're an awesome crew and most have a great sense of humour, which is a huge plus. Getting to the Druitt is a bit of a pain, however. I really do not enjoy waiting at that station late at night, and I have to change trains at Penrith after hours. I refuse to buy a car, though. I'm saving money, getting exercise, and it's good for the environment people! If I get beaten up or stabbed I'll just have to deal with it...

4. Relief

Bleugh. I almost wish I was given vascular surgery again. Hopefully I won't be fucked over like this year. Going straight from nights into days made me feel like someone whacked me over the head repeatedly with a baseball bat. I have a newfound respect for the fortitude of nurses after that stunt.

5. Blacktown Endocrine/General Medicine/Immunology

Hmmm... haven't heard much about this term, but I did my honours project in immunology, and endocrinology can't be too much of a stretch. It's basically just diabetes and thyroid problems, right? With the odd pituitary or adrenal disorder thrown in? And general med is old news. Been there, done that.

A Modicum Of Chastity

2008-11-16T09:53:00.002+11:00

Walking down the corridors of the fifth floor of hospital yesterday, I caught a glimpse of a conversation regarding the murder of unborn children, and the 'anti-life' people who support this view.

It frustrates me that this highly controversial topic is viewed in such black and white terms as pro- and anti-life, or pro- and anti-choice. Also frustrating is the number of people who seem to honour the sanctity of life in utero, but not to a convicted mass murderer on the gallows. Surely life is a gift from God, and not for humans to give or take as they please? And how many of those against abortion supported the Iraqi war, essentially condemning a multitude of Iraqi and American people to death, simply by being swept up in a political and economic quagmire? A war endorsed by God, I hear some people say... well, why not a dilation and curettage endorsed by the very same figurehead (when convenient)?

In a modern world of double standards, an absolute statement like 'all life is sacred' requires unpopular decisions to be made. By far the worst justification for breaching such an absolute statement is by announcing that God has approved this death- how many murders have been set about in history in the name of some deity? The human and cultural cost is incalculable.

I am not a religious person, but my personal belief runs against abortion. However, this is not my decision to make. Here are the reasons why I am 'pro-choice' (if we are to bifurcate the issue cleanly):

1. Safety
According to the Lancet article in 2007 (volume 370) submitted by Sedgh G, et al, 48% of abortions worldwide are performed unsafely, which means roughly nineteen to twenty million women put their lives at risk each year by attempting to abort through potentially dangerous means. This percentage jumps to about 90% in African and Latin-American countries, where abortion is largely illegal and women have no means to access an accredited clinic.

Lancet 2006 (volume 368), submitted by Grimes D et al reported that there are roughly 220 000 abortion-related deaths each year, and the article used the word 'pandemic' to describe the epidemiology of this phenomenon. The number of women who experience other complications, such as pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, or are ostracised by their community are not included.

In Africa, an unsafe abortion carries a 13% risk of maternal death.

Note: suddenly the term 'pro-life' becomes far less black and white.

2. Reasons
Anyone who gets worked up by a story from A Current Affair is a fool, simply because this evil evil show is a master of selective bias. They choose people from extreme ends of the bell curve who they know will rile up their audience, and unscrupulously display them like it's mainstream behaviour. The majority of women do not have abortions because they're promiscuous Westie whores who can't be bothered using contraception. This article demonstrates the mindset quite well, however if you can't be bothered reading it, the general idea is that in Australia in 1992, 44.1% of women under 25 cited socioeconomic reasons for abortion, and 41.2% cited maternal age as an issue. If abortion was made illegal and all conceptions forced to term, the children born to young mothers with socioeconomic problems could potentially create a huge social dilemma, requiring a complex (and expensive) welfare system to prevent a social catastrophe. Adoption is also an issue, but even today women are potentially ostracised for a controversial pregnancy, and it's hard to disguise a swollen belly, maintain eye contact, and announce that you can't afford the child, it was a mistake, and you're giving it away.

Relationship problems and risk to maternal and fetal health were cited as minor reasons.

And yes, I am aware the data is sixteen years old.

2. Genetics and Evolution
Selective pressure has evolved an ingenious method of survival: fucking. It's fun and (usually) free. And unfortunately results in pregnancy. This side-effect becomes more likely when one doesn't receive sex education, or when drugs and alcohol are involved, which leads to suspension of higher reasoning processes and therefore riskier behaviour (like using a Mars Bar wrapper instead of a condom a la Family Guy). Abstinence is therefore commendable in those who aspire to an ascetic lifestyle, but also unrealistic for the majority who don't. Bottom line: you can't stop people having sex, but you can invite them to better understand the consequences through intensive education, and provide wdespread and affordable access to contraceptives without judgement.

And to answer Nick's question, I can't see NSW falling in with Victoria and ACT anytime soon, but at least we're not as backward as Queensland.

Your Hands Around My Throat

2008-11-13T21:05:00.004+11:00

...And yet again, the same old story.

I'm beginning to believe I'm missing a fateful gene that protects against erratic human behaviour. Or perhaps I really am mildly borderline, like a psychology friend suggested back in undergrad. I love you when you love me, and I love you when I can see you, and I hate you when you hate me, and I'm indifferent when you're not in plain sight. Most people would shrug their shoulders and announce that not everyone in the world can like each other. This is a skill I need to learn. In the meantime, people seem to be able to smell my rotting viscera if they get too close, and they learn to stay away.

Yet again, the dance is the same. And the final step is the killer. And this evening was the point I hate most- the point where it dawns on me that someone would rather ignore me than be friends, simply because they were turned down for a fuck. I hate the feeling of inconsequentiality it creates.

I hate that sexuality is still so taboo that expressing yourself sexually is a cuckoo dance; a fleeting exposure and then quickly slamming the hinged doors shut. Deal with your insecurities. Mine lie far deeper.

Although I was too young to feel the direct effects, as I grew older I began to learn more about the damage that can be done from indiscretions of your supposed lineage. Even decades on small everyday mannerisms and choices bleed out from painful wrongs done long before I can remember. I used to think I was immune, and that playing a quiet game of pretence was far easier; now I realise that, much as I hate to admit it, denying these consequences sees its own form of imaginative revenge. And so the days following my step father's demise earlier this year saw me sitting on a plastic chair uncomfortably watching my mother painfully relive the experience that is so little talked about but so frequently thought about. I refuse to let the same experience happen to me- I would rather be by myself than put unconditional trust in someone else and risk losing it all. I've seen a friend cry his eyes out and have a deep and meaningful with Johnny Walker. This will not happen to me.

Let me be perfectly clear to the anonymous electronic ethos. I'm drowning in other people's issues daily from nine to five, and the solution is not to produce some more of my own, but to step back into an open space so I can breathe properly. The friend level is far safer; any further and strange Cam comes out to play. Blame it on my childhood, or my genes, or my overly-analytical style of thinking. This is my personal second layer of hell, not yours. Please don't make it any worse.

Sospiro

2008-11-10T20:57:00.003+11:00

It's Monday evening, and the air in my converted garage room on the side of the house is warm and lazy. My desk is scattered with various papers from Avant, Sydney West Area Health Service, phone bills, and blank squares decorated with meaningless squiggles. The cat is on my bed, purring loudly and occasionally lifting his inquisitive head to keep me in his sight just in case I make any sudden movements. I'm feeling pretty lazy 'cause I haven't gone swimming or jogging or even picked up my weights recently. My hair, earlier neatly tied up, now hangs limply over the side of the chair. I really should do some exercise, or go and iron a shirt for tomorrow, but the house is quiet and at peace, and so eyes wander around my room: the museum of mementos.

Strung up nearby is a set of rosary beads direct from The Vatican, but I won't be saying any Hail Marys tonight.

Behind it is a framed stamp from Japan, given to me when I was young by our first Japanese exchange student, but I'll probably never see or hear from her again.

Below that is a glass jar full of tiny origami stars with faces on them, a rare and thoughtful gift from a nurse in Shanghai, but I don't remember her Chinese name, only the word 'Bridge'.

Above that is a stick figure from Bali, given to me by my family on their return, but I remember the day being cold and unfriendly, despite their best intentions.

On the side of the wall is an old speeding fine, my first and last, dated 4th November, 2006. I was thoroughly ashamed and paid it immediately, but it's still there to remind me of how stupid I was. I still feel pretty stupid two years later.

Hung up nearby is a piece of wood with a circle of nails. Woven around them are layers of coloured wools, forming a reticular spirograph almost like an Aztec sun. I made it when I was a cub, and I was indoctrinated with the mantra 'be prepared', but I find that I am rarely prepared for anything as an adult.

From the other side of the room is a Japanese wall scroll, depicting one of the parade carts from the Gion Festival in Kyoto. It is hand-painted and extraordinary to look at, with flowing Japanese script cascading down the sides. It is a reminder of one of my favourite students from four years ago, a minute lady called Reiko. She was a paradigm of selflessness and grace, and she unconditionally accepted my clumsiness and fascination with her culture.

Uchuu wa shimpi ni michite iru!

Engendered

2008-11-08T15:55:00.002+11:00

Anonymous has said...
You really are such an arsehole. Please don't become a psychiatrist.

The author is a big mystery to me, partly because I have confronted the prime (and only) suspect and they flatly disavowed any knowledge of it.

I'm a little bored, so let's break the sentence down a little, eh?

Firstly, the tone. I'm not really getting a lot of sarcasm here. It seems straightforward, concise, and designed to be disparaging. Doubtful that this is a joke.

Second, there is perfect spelling, punctuation, and grammar. This knocks out a surprising number of people, especially with the whole "You" instead of "U".

You really are such an arsehole implies that I have a track record with this author, like I've done something awful to them and this 'women-crying' business has simply solidified their opinion. Hmmm... who hates me enough to make such a comment? Well, I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't like me, but to go out of their way like this requires a little more enthusiasm. This also knocks a lot of people off the list.

Arsehole implies the author is from Australia, New Zealand, or the United Kingdom.

Please don't become a psychiatrist means this person knows about my interests in psyche. This one is interesting, as only friends, family, people at Westmead Hospital, and online people who have read my blog for more than one year (of which there are none I know) really fit this description.

I can also backtrack the netlog entry to the ISP domain of 122.107.90.#, which is an Optus domain, and narrows the scope to the Sydney region. It also means no one accessed the site from hospital, which has its own domain (203.32.142.#)

The author entered my blog on the 7th November at 8.43am, and stayed for 7 minutes and 43 seconds, viewing three pages (including the comments page on the most recent entry). This time is interesting, as it's a Friday just before the work day starts. Does this person not work, or work unusual hours, or have they perhaps come into work a little early and killed time by surfing the net?

Also, the author used a Mac, as the internet browser used to access my page was Firefox. The Mac has an Intel processor and used MacOS 10.4, which is a little outdated. This rules out a certain computer expert I know.

Does anyone else have anything to add? Any ideas? I love a good mystery...

Happyperidol

2008-11-06T19:56:00.002+11:00

The end of my inaugural week of Geriatrics is approaching. I have worked eleven days straight (seven nights, four days) and have two sweet days off coming up, and they have never looked so delicious. Of course, I have to conquer Friday first, and Friday evening I am on call to pick up a shift if any shitbrick of a resident decides to take a sickie. This will most certainly not happen.

I'm not sure I can work any more than ha' past eight to five. I seem to allot a certain amount of energy to be used up each day, and if I fuck with the rationing I'll end up with an extra six hours of work and no willpower to sustain myself.

Working with oldies is an interesting slant on medicine. Their bodies are physiologically fragile, and consequences arise that would otherwise be quickly dismissed in a younger patient. Constipation is a serious concern which often threatens to complicate even the simplest medical admission. An holistic approach is favoured, with a heavy emphasis on allied health and words like 'baseline function' and 'two times assist with walking frame'. Sometimes the medical problems are subservient to an unstable home situation. I find myself repeatedly hoping that the patient's children are willing to be involved in their ailing parent's care. Most are.

I have made two women cry this week. One now smiles at me when I enter the room. The other has sunk into a pit of disorganised depression and cannot bring herself to even pretend to be polite. It's not the first time I've encountered this.

When You Believe

2008-11-04T19:57:00.003+11:00

I recently overheard someone say: if you want something enough, it will happen.

I hate this quote. It's like answers from tarot cards: vague and mutable to suit the circumstances. There are things that I want that will never happen. A believer would say it's because I don't want it enough. I say it's because life consistently hurts bags of shit at you and then expects you to cover yourself in it and smile all the way home.

I'm not depressed, or unhappy with my circumstances. On the contrary, I've finished doing my crappy relief term and have rotated into geriatrics, which I'm finding very interesting and far less damaging to my Circadian rhythm.

I just simply think it's irresponsible to peddle warm-hearted Disney philosophies that will simply encourage us to expect the unattainable. So sad, so sad...

The Ride Home

2008-10-28T08:41:00.002+11:00

I am metronoming between caffeinated wakefulness and hypersomnolence. The suburbs passing by become desolate and unrecognisable. Music from my iPod confuses me; it's difficult to tell for certain whether the sounds come from the headphones or whether the band is actually on the carriage with me. As the train slows for the next station my eyelids close and I'm certain it will never actually stop, but will continue to slow down eternally until the inertia becomes unbearable. I feel like I'm more liquid than solid. This is actually true, but now I believe it.

"The Word Of The Day Is Expiation"

2008-10-26T15:04:00.004+11:00

What can one do to reform unfathomable behaviour?

I would like to think that, on the whole, I have some ability to see the logic behind alternative viewpoints and the behaviours that bind them, but in some circumstances it takes a situation in reverse and handed to us on a silver platter to truly comprehend another mind. This luxury is not always afforded to us, but if it happens I would like to think I'm comprehensive enough to seize the situation and learn from it. In some ways I am an adult; in many others I am a hopeless child, naive and corrigible.

All it took was a thorny situation retold over brunch for me to recognise elements of myself in the harsh words meant for a stranger. My appetite scurried under the table, reddened and humiliated, as no doubt a similar conversation had occurred somewhere else with me as the subject. The idea that someone can think so little of me and sustain a conversation from it is disturbing.

In a way, this mindset means I'll never forget and hopefully will never wander down the same erroneous path again. I believe that everyone over a certain age will understand this sentence well.

Be Not Sad

2008-10-21T00:59:00.003+11:00

I had my arms wrapped around the most beautiful woman in existence today.

She scolded me for treating her badly.

By this evening I came to the crystal conclusion that I am the most stupid male on the planet.

Tomorrow is the start of my reformation.

Golgotha

2008-10-17T10:34:00.003+11:00

And so my four weeks of freedom have come to a close, and next week marks the return to work. I'm back at Blacktown emergency, which I'm not really looking forward to (at all), where the nurses call each other 'biyatch', and there are no beds available.

I called the roster lady at Blacktown because no one mailed out the shifts I was supposed to be doing, and she uttered various confused noises over the phone before finally declaring that I wasn't on the list.

My first thought was: "fuck, I could've had another week off and nobody would've known any better'.

My second thought was: "maybe I won't have to do any more emergency". The second thought was actually very promising, so I told the roster lady that I would contact the head of resident support to see if I could be placed elsewhere, but she quickly responded with a comment along the lines of: "no no, we ALWAYS need doctors- I'll create a roster for you." Bugger.

Not too happy, I asked if I could be put on a day shift because the week after next I'm doing seven surgical nights in a row. She obliged, thank god, otherwise I would've refused to work rather than work two weeks of consecutive nights. And people LOVE putting relieving interns onto night shifts.

In the meantime, I'll try to enjoy what little time I have left.

The Cull

2008-10-13T21:32:00.003+11:00

I've been looking at my blog links, and I've just realised that many of them have been collecting cobwebs for several months. Therefore any links to blogs that haven't been updated in over six months will be removed (with sincere sympathies).

I think six months is a good test of character. Only a certain type of personality has that extra 'spice' required to keep a web log running. Most will drop out because they lose interest or they find their writing skills to be sub-par. I would have thought myself one of these people, however perhaps I'm introspective and literary enough to keep indulging in online mental masturbation.

Keeping one's blog interesting, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. Mental note: must work on improving interest level.

I, the author, hereby say farewell to the following blog links:
-Around The World With Mattias- Nice overseas German med student I met as a third year (I think) at Nepean. He'll be a doctor too by now.

-Complete Nonsense- Sorry Bayten, I was always denied access to this blog when the privacy level shifted, therefore 'tis as good as being wanting in updates.

-Joel's Jibe- Had potential, but the author got bored (or busy).

-Sara's Baby Blog- God, has anything on this blog changed in two years? Perhaps I'll need to link a new blog if Sara decides to document her second ordeal.

-The Flying Doctor- Looks like he landed in January and hasn't taken another flight since.

-The Human Wunderkammer- I guess she got rid of her collection when she moved to Prague.

Now I must be on the lookout for interesting blogs that are updated at least once or twice a month...

Highlander

2008-10-10T20:50:00.002+11:00

Back from holidays, where I have 'recharged'. I visited a place that was almost familiar, but not quite, in the sparsely populated southern region of the ACT.

Hilights of the holiday (in no particular order... except numerical):

1. Climbing a nearby mountain and peering over the other side.

2. Conversing with animals.

3. Conversing with humans.

4. Marveling at how much vomiting can go on in four nights.

5. Discovering how easy it is to irritate other people when you're in close proximity for more than 24 hours.

6. Discovering the rooms and gardens of the Lanyon homestead.

7. Learning about Rosehip and how much I like the oil but hate the plant.

8. Getting stressed during Hearts and then hating myself for not being cool throughout the game.

9. Listening to the awful awful noises a donkey makes.

10. Getting a tan. Or at least being a shade darker than usual.

The Manliest Of 'Em All

2008-10-02T18:41:00.003+10:00

It is a day of awakening. I have gotten my hands dirty and 'serviced' a car by replacing the oil, air filter, and spark plugs. It was messy and manly and something that I would've probably paid someone else to do if it was my car, but now that I've done the deed I feel like I'm somehow useful to society. Raise your bonnets and display your engines, O people of Emu Plains! The Cam is waiting with ratchet in hand.

Of course, afterwards I ruined it all by putting expensive face stuff on my friend's face to clean up his skin, but I swear he appreciated the gesture. It was like an exchange of cultures.

By the way, I'm pretty sure that man is using the baby as a football. That would be the manliest thing to do with little children.

Today Was...

2008-09-28T00:42:00.002+10:00

...Pretty damn close to perfection.

Accompanied by a friend and my mother, I explored the book culture of Wentworth Falls this afternoon, complete with food and rolling conversation. I'm glad my mother came along; everyone else was otherwise engaged for the day and she would have been left alone in the Plains. The weather was happy, the food was tasteful, and I was at liberty to relax and proceed through the hours of the day at my own meandering pace.

I, of course, bought a sex book; the others collected less debauched items. My mountains friend in particular went book crazy, and I was happy to finance her little exploration as long as she remained happy to accept.

The remainder of the afternoon was divided between two households. It started back at my friend's place eating Jabba The Cake, which was delicious, if not a beacon of aesthetic perfection, then dissolved into a light evening and became an impromptu musical affair reeking of hippy-dom by the shore of Wentworth Falls lake, and ended with a truly forgettable B-grade horror movie starring no one I know or care about.

Oh, and we made firm friends with an intrepid stick insect. I hope he writes me.

Cartographers Please Note

2008-09-25T10:56:00.002+10:00

I'm still chuckling after taking a quick look at Our Dumb World on The Onion's site. This is the atlas I should've had when I was younger. The information about each country includes such gems as:

Columbia- "...world's leading exporter of whatever it is you're looking for."

India- "...has every intention of addressing these problems [poverty, pollution, crumbling infrastructure] just as soon as it finishes telling Midwesterners how to install Windows XP on their home computer."

China- "...world's largest mass producer of Chinese."

Spain- "...lost the contact information for its American colonies centuries ago."

France- "Home to Earth's entire population of 62.7 million people..."

Brazil- "Boasting some of the sexiest people ever to be stabbed repeatedly at night..."

Pure gold.

The Island Of Dr Armstrong

2008-09-22T22:58:00.003+10:00

It is a time of deep unrest.

I was jogging through the darkened streets of Emu Plains this evening, accompanied by a kind breeze that played with the trees and a DVD of The War Of The Worlds in my left hand. I borrowed it because I finished reading the book and wanted to compare it to the movie, but I found the movie tasteless and not at all H-G-Wellian. Five minutes after closing time I reached the video store and put the DVD through the after-hours chute, then jogged for another fifteen or so minutes, weaving through grey suburban streets. I jogged through a park with a narrow walking bridge and past a house whose inhabitants I desperately want to be friends with but can't think of a smooth way to introduce myself without lying and/or inflaming an already jagged situation.

Jogging is such a rhythmic, repetitive movement you can't help but wander off in thought. I thought about almost everything one can possibly think of, including the frightening prospect that I'm almost reaching a stage where I would prefer to be with someone than by myself. This is most alarming because, although I hate to admit it, I am essentially a fragile person, and I enjoy the fact that no one has any power over the way I feel but myself. It is with great reluctance that I will concede myself to another human being. Perhaps I should just love my cat instead. He has a good track record.

I stopped jogging about a half a block from the house so I could walk for a minute and cool down. I felt the usual floating post-exertional peace of mind, but this piece of mind was in my body, not my thoughts. Unusually, my thoughts were turbulent for some time after. I might not go jogging again for a while...

The Hard Line

2008-09-20T16:48:00.003+10:00

Oh the bitter taste of a narrow margin of defeat!

I just went piece by piece through the process of councillor elections in south ward, my eyes firmly fixed on the possibility of electing a Greens member to the local council, only to have her knocked out in the final frickin' preference redistribution by 300 votes.

This means 2 Labor, 2 Liberal, and one independent (Jim Aitken- formerly Liberal but physically assaulted and threatened a union official and is now a conservative maverick. Don't believe me? Link here.)

Do people not remember this? Or are union officials that hated nowadays that it's considered ok to break the law where they're concerned? My electorate has 5 077 idiots who seem to think so.

In other news, I have four weeks of annual leave, and fuck oath it feels good. Anyone for tennis?

Green To Greener

2008-09-15T18:01:00.004+10:00

I've recently been looking around on the internet for places to live. Not that I don't enjoy Emu Plains, but I'm thinking it's about time I moved out of home. I am, after all, 27 years old for chrissakes, and I love being by myself.

It's an interesting prospect: I've actually lived out of home for roughly seventeen months of my life, twelve of which were overseas, but I've never lived by myself in Sydney, and the idea is a little unnerving.

Ideally, I'd like to live in the inner west. No surprises there. I fit in better with the inhabitants, plus the Newtownian culture is just so bloody appealing. Problem is, it's also bloody expensive, and I don't really want to pay any more than $200 a week. Also, it's on a different train line to Westmead and Blacktown, but this is a minor concern.

Perhaps living around Strathfield or Parramatta would suffice? Then I can still catch an express to Westmead or Blacktown, plus it wouldn't be quite as expensive as the chic inner suburbs. Parramatta is starting to get a little skanky though. Oh well, I'm not a millionaire.

I even looked around for apartments in Penrith. Hmmm... they're cheap all right, but... what's the point? I may as well stay in Emu Plains.

And then there's the Blue Mountains. This area is very green and full of creative weird people, and I'd like to live there, but my hours are not always 9 to 5 M-F, and the Blue Mountains train line has the annoying tendency to succumb to trackwork blues after hours.

What to do...?

Tick It Off

2008-09-09T17:46:00.002+10:00

I have now voted, so that I need not worry about wasting time voting on Saturday and can concentrate on handing out pamphlets. I plan to look as sexy as possible. Not sure how I'll manage it, but I'll try. Perhaps some young impressionable girls will be charmed and decide to vote Green.

Note the Christian Democrat Party does not say 'vote Green' this time. Instead they are using the trigger words: 'The Green family party'.

My gosh elections get me excited. Perhaps a little too excited, if you know what I mean. I'm far more likely to want to get it on with multiple random strangers at this time. Strange that I would feel it necessary to divulge this information.

Get Some

2008-09-08T15:52:00.002+10:00

Dear Diary,

I'm really enjoying having a week off after doing nights, and I'm quite proud of the fact that I only took a tablet once to assist my shifting sleep patterns. Having said that, I haven't really had much in the way of decent sleep since last Saturday, but I'm confident that I will snooze long and hard tonight and feel like a new man tomorrow morning. Now I know exactly how hard I can push myself and still not reach breaking point. Makes me wonder what exactly is my breaking point? Perhaps I'd rather not know.

I also had lunch with Li'l Bro and his woman today. They make a cute couple, and as usual I felt like a third wheel, but at least I got a little sneak peak into the personality of a woman so thoroughly interested in the youngest member of my family. We'll see where this goes, but in the meantime I'm fairly happy as long as he is happy.

Signing off,

Cam

A question...

2008-09-05T18:51:00.002+10:00

When is it too late to apologise for stupid things you've done in the past?

I apologised to someone recently because it was the right thing to do. Now I feel humiliated and awful. Who was the fucking tool who said that the right thing to do makes you feel better?

The other person took the easy route: avoid confrontation, avoid conversation, avoid eye contact, avoid humiliation, save face so to speak. I think they should be a little apologetic as well- they are by no means perfect.

I think too much about how to remedy problems with other people, but sometimes I guess the best thing to do is to simply walk away. Trying to improve the situation simply makes things worse.

But then I think, I'd rather to the right thing than the easy thing. Note I don't always follow this in practice.

Disclaimer: this has been written with a foggy head and an unhappy heart. Therefore ignore this message- next week I'll probably feel better.

Give Me Strength

2008-09-04T10:07:00.002+10:00

Four nights have bled by. It's all downhill from here.

The Good:
- Watching the constellation Orion slowly creep across the night sky when I have some time to sit and ponder at 4am.

- Knowing every ward and every secret shortcut like the back of my hand. This will help for all my future terms at Westmead.

- Getting to know the night staff, some of whom are very friendly and amazingly competent and only page when there is a genuine concern or problem.

-Having the cafeteria staff start preparing my order as soon as they see me (I always get the same thing).

The Bad:
- Feeling haggard and drained in the morning, surrounded by fresh-faced peak hour commuters.

- Having to cover twenty one wards.

- Newgrad nurses who page me for fucking everything. I know, I know, they're unsure and I would rather them page me than do something wrong, but it's still bloomin' frustrating.

The Ugly:
- Avoiding staff who I don't get along with.

- Feeling guilty for hating dumbass patients who think they can walk, and then fall over, which means I have to cross half the hospital to review them, or who pull their cannulas out, which means I have to waste time resiting another one.

Progress

2008-09-02T09:33:00.002+10:00

Two nights down, five to go.

I tried to sleep during the day. I managed seven hours, but it was surface sleep, not like nighttime sleep. I kept navigating the grey line between wake and dozing, with the occasional short dream floating through my bedclothes.

The second night was easier than the first, though. I didn't feel like nodding off all the time and my head felt in the right place. That said, I'm now utterly exhausted and I hope I sleep better today. Mum decked out my room like a cave, to let in as little light as possible, do hopefully my cortisol and melatonin levels won't play so much with my psyche tomorrow.

The only reason I haven't crawled to bed yet is because I'm waiting for some toast to pop out of the toaster. I feel a little queasy, but not eating will ultimately make me feel worse.

How on earth do nurses do it?

Twisted

2008-08-31T15:39:00.003+10:00

Just finished a week of evenings at Westmead, with a smooth segue into nights. I feel a little like I've been tumble-dried and blanked out, and this will get worse before it gets better.

How will my circadian rhythm cope? Tune in for next week's episode...

Silver Opportunity

2008-08-24T20:38:00.002+10:00

How best to validate someone than through a choice they make at a crucial moment? I am thoroughly impressed by someone I barely met only two weeks ago, yet couldn't find the courage to throw a single well-deserved compliment in his direction.

On my final evening in Bathurst I was invited to several pubs for a goodbye drink. I decided to pub-hop to satisfy all the potential engagements, and started off at the pub which required the least distance to get to. I ended up meeting with and animatedly chatting to a friendly and attractive nurse and her equally amicable partner for a while before moving on to a physio and a lady friend of his.

It wasn't long before I realised I had interrupted something in progress. Now, Physio gets a fair amount of attention at hospital from the ladies, and this girl at the bar was obviously as equally infatuated. She was also very trashed and a bit wobbly on her feet. It wasn't hard to see where this was going. As it was now around 3am and I was pretty tired and ready to crash, I more or less said goodbye and left the drunk girl to the mercy of Physio.

I walked home, my head full of a mixture of disgust and admiration for guys who can so successfully prowl like I'd just witnessed. Reaching the hospital and about to turn up the street to my home, I saw a solitary flicker of movement near the hospital accommodation. It was none other than Physio, who had obviously decided against plowing the drunk chick. I wanted to give him a medal for restoring my faith in humanity for an evening.

I slept very peacefully that night. But it could have been from the alcohol.

The Plains Of The West...

2008-08-20T22:17:00.002+10:00

...are soon to be behind me. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Bathurst. As with all places I've lived in it took some time to find my niche (so to speak), but I will be sad to leave this quaint little town with its friendly people and historic buildings. I am looking forward to coming back to Sydney, however.

Just to recap, these are the places I have lived in at some point in my life (note LIVED, not visited):

Cowra
Sydney
Canberra
Kyoto
Alice Springs
Murwillumbah
Shanghai
Bathurst

They all have their unique charms, and I would really like to add to this list (especially some overseas places).

Is It Wrong....

2008-08-12T18:48:00.002+10:00

...that I frequently have more fun with the New Zealand nurses roughly twice my age than the twenty somethings in Bathurst?

...that I think the married nurse on med ward is the most attractive girl I've met this year and I let her walk all over me?

...to steal vitamin C tablets from the ward?

...for me to eat Brazil nuts if my selenium levels are already adequate?

...to type with my hand down my pants?

...to think that my consultant's sense of humour is on a par with plankton?

...to not ask a patient for fifty bucks if he develops a semi while I'm catheterising him?

...to cook an amazing vegan spaghetti and then refuse to share with anyone?

Gorecki

2008-08-09T20:17:00.005+10:00

This is getting faintly ridiculous- I have yet another cold. This makes three in eight weeks. I have spent almost as much time with a blocked nose as I have without.

Bathurst people are diseased pricks who can rot in hell for spreading these viruses around.

I actually had to take two days off last week because I felt sick and needed a break from work. This is something I probably should've done a while ago (to ease pressure off my body and to stop exposing sick patients at work), but I have to work fourteen hours tomorrow and no one else is going to do it, so I'm glad I took some time off to sleep.

Being an intern is like a delicate juggling act in hell. Everyone must be kept as happy as possible throughout your working day, despite the fact that they are all quite happy to walk all over you. Humane things like concern that you didn't have time for lunch is shallow at best and completely transparent at worst. "Oh, you poor thing, you've been going non-stop for six hours? You should really go and have something to eat. But before you do that, could you write a trasnfer letter for this patient because he's going to Rylstone Hospital in ten minutes, and can you rewrite a med chart because he's got meds due at lunch that weren't given. Oh, and the lady in bed thirteen has a blood pressure of 90/55 and it's falling. Can you review her please?" And I would bet you my first born child that as I start to do those things at least one more thing would be asked of me, like a long string of linked requests with no end. Cheeky fucking nurses actually page me an hour after I 'finish' work too, and I'm told to turn my pager off to avoid that, but be warned: if you don't respond to your pager nurses get angry and will make you wish you stayed with that retail job. On Friday evening two hours after I was supposed to knock off work I had to firmly and repeatedly tell nurses to page the after hours resident, because I was still finishing work that hadn't yet been completed throughout the day.

Basically I'm a signature. And I'm there. So nurses will try to stop me to get the signature. Whether or not it's appropriate.

And then there's my consultant. My goal is to make him happy at least once. During my mid-term assessment he criticised me for leaving ward rounds, but then the week after that asked me to urgently book a VQ scan for a patient. I had to leave the ward round to do that. He made no comment on that, because he wanted his VQ scan, dammit. All he wants is results and for me to follow him and write everything he does. The intricate bureaucratic steps between these two points and the general ward work that take up the bulk of my day are of no concern to him.

I was also criticised for not knowing blood test results off by memory during ward rounds. Note: it is impossible for me to remember blood test results for all patients, and I don't get a lot of time to check results during the day. The solution to this is to write all the daily results in the notes, so that I can quickly flick to them if questioned. The problem is, this adds an extra half an hour to an hour to each day, and if I hang around, there are always nurses asking me to do 'just this one little thing more'.

Don't get me wrong, nurses have it bad too, but there are far more nurses to share the load, and they have defined work hours (and I have never seen a nurse stay back for two hours beyond their shift like I constantly have to), and a definite lunch break, and they don't have to carry a pager, so if they dare to leave the ward to have some food they aren't paged to come back. Oh, and here's a fun fact: a first year nurse gets paid MORE per hour than a first year doctor. The only reason I get more money is because of overtime. And a first year nurse is not targeted by senior nurses and allied health staff with authority problems who like to shit on doctors but are too cowardly to take their revenge out on the senior ones.

Oh, to be sick and at hospital. I hate dealing with those (admittedly rare) dessicated, bad-tempered staff with attitude issues at the best of times, but when my nose is blocked up it's twice as bad. I am much less inclined to be able to politely defer the five nurses who ask me to do something NOW BECAUSE IT'S IMPORTANT AND I PAGED YOU FIVE MINUTES AGO. And my greatest fear is that I will snap and get angry at an abusive patient who has no idea how clogged the system is and wants everything done now as well.

And the worst thing is, eventually to reduce my workload I'll probably start resorting to half-arsed paperwork, which will probably also be criticised. You're damned if you do...

-Addendum-
On re-reading this post, I have come to the conclusion that I am a cranky, cold-hearted shit when feeling sick. Most of the nurses on the ward are actually decent, sympathetic human beings.

That Nurse In ICU Is A Penfold...

2008-08-03T13:20:00.003+10:00

...and just as ugly to look at.

Recently I've taken to pulling my hair back into a folded over ponytail thingy to keep it out of my face whilst doing cannulas and other random procedural stuff requiring gloves. Because some of my hair isn't long enough at the sides, I also pin it back with a couple of bobby pins. This is very comfortable, and means I don't have to put any greasy waxy shit into my hair.

As usual, doing things that don't fit comfortably with narrow-minded, boring-as-fuck, insipid mannequins has created some controversy. Some people tell me my hair looks okay this way, and others are not quite so complimentative. Of course, being the general med intern in a small hospital means people love to tell me all about what they think, because something about me says I want to hear it.

One nurse in particular felt somehow the need to inform me that an unnamed person liked the ponytail but thought the pins could go. I hotheadedly fired back that I didn't want to hear about opinions from people who are stuck in a cultural and sexual dichotomy, and I demanded to know the name of the person so I could personally tell them to mind their own effing business. Then I launched into a tirade about morons who can't break out of socially-concrete behaviour and then shit on others who are willing to.

I got a lot of strange, strange looks. No doubt my little spiel will be all over the hospital on Monday, and I will be talked about in the corridors and stairways as an overly sensitive oddball.

No matter how much I tell myself that other opinions do not matter and that it's essentially water off a duck's back, there is always that element of frustration with people who:

1. feel it necessary to comment on people who do not necessarily LIKE dressing and acting the same way as every other Joe or Jill Suburbia.

2. aren't confident enough to criticise someone to their face.

On another topic, yesterday I went to an airfield with a friend, and we took turns in a glider. Oh man am I glad I went.

My friend went first, and threw up after twenty minutes.

I went next, apprehensive about my stomach being tempestuous, but my ride went for an hour and my insides were at peace, and the instructor found thermal after thermal, spiraling up to about 1.6 kms above the ground. I got a bird's eye view of Bathurst and surrounds, drifting lazily through the air without the incessant drone of an engine, experienced a brain-confusing spectrum of g-forces, and got to fly the glider for a short while myself. As a highlight, the driver did a couple of acrobatic tricks that left me laughing my head off and clutching at the sides of my seat.

Happy Cam.

This Is What I Wanted To Say

2008-07-10T22:35:00.002+10:00

I like to be noticed, as long as it's subtle and far-reaching, without any effort or commitment on my behalf. I like that you trashed your pride and painted a target symbol on your chest while the entire ward pretended not to notice.

I hate that I try hard to be friendly and charming to grease wheels and make my job easier. I certainly hate that familiar smell of twisted hormonal logic.

I hate that you took out your pen and gave me something I didn't want, but accepted anyway to be polite.

I don't like that you will be uncomfortable around me for the next six weeks when you find out how inperceptably hollow and porcelain I am.

I wish you weren't so forward. Now I have to play dumb, in an attempt to avoid a repeat of previous disasters.

I think I make this same mistake over and over, and never learn.

Let Me Bore You...

2008-07-06T17:07:00.002+10:00

...with my day.

I bought a new digital camera (duh as per previous post) yesterday and it's a compact good quality Canon thing. I'm quite happy with my beautiful little piece of technology. So happy, in fact, that I wandered around Bathurst today taking photos of things I liked. Which was mainly architecture.

After lazing around in the morning, I did all the boring cleaning and washing things that unfortunately I have to do to not regress into a caveman existence, then ventured out to the Fossil and Mineral Museum. It's not the largest museum in the world, but I like to take my time and absorb everything including Australia's only fully-assembled T Rex skeleton, so I was there 'til close (at 2pm- it is Bathurst after all). Whilst shelling out moolah for a ticket, the curator chatted to me at the entrance, and found out I was an intern at Bathurst Hospital. Very annoyingly, he decided to come along with me and chat about antidiuretic hormone. I was actually impressed that he managed to bore me so quickly. I was, after all, by myself at a mineral and fossil museum on Sunday afternoon, so not one to easily drift focus.

After escaping the Curator Of Tedium, I wandered over to Miss Traill's House, a trust built when Bathurst was much smaller and newer. The website site said it was open 'til 3.30pm. It neglected to include that it was only open every 2nd and 4th weekend. Disappointed, I hung around taking some photos of the impressive little cottage and garden from behind the fence, then gave up.

Next was the Japanese garden, built by Oukura town in Japan as some kind of gift. It's a modest affair (that I actually visited on my first weekend here), but I was armed with my camera this time, so whipped it out and immortalised the oriental vegetative arrangement. I took out a sandwich I bought earlier and started to make it disappear, and was almost swooped by an obviously very hungry and reasonably intrepid bird. I gave it a little bread, and in turn it politely posed for a photo.

The remainder of my day was walking up and down the main drag, snapping the odd photo, visiting a local cafe (not bad either), and then doing some shopping before wandering home.

All up I would've spent a good five hours in town today, and not once was a car necessary. I got a lot of exercise, didn't pump any noxious fumes into the atmosphere (from an exhaust pipe anyway), and didn't have to pay for petrol. If I'd had a car, I would've got it all done a lot quicker I guess, but then I would've just been back at the house sitting around bored. Today is Sunday, and I was in no hurry to get where I was going.

Seems logical, right? So why do people look at me strangely when I say I don't own a car...

I Looked Like A Tourist...

2008-07-05T16:39:00.008+10:00

...but I was finally able to capture some of what I like about Bathurst. My eyes have been wrenched out of my head and put in your skull for the remainder of this post:

Can you believe the council debated demolishing this building, which is the ambulance station, and replacing it with a more modern building next to the new hospital? This building is on the highway, and is one of the first buildings you'll see as you come in from the Sydney direction.

This is St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, on the corner of George and Howick St in the CBD. I walk past this building on my way to the shops. Took me a while to wait for the sun to do what I wanted here.

Had to include a shot of the courthouse, (arguably) the most impressive building in Bathurst. Unfortunately my camera isn't wide enough to capture the wings. I'll have to find a better spot to shoot it (or try an oblique shot).

This is the old hospital, and believe me when I say it's a difficult building to capture because there's currently a shitload of wires and ugly construction crap around it at the moment. I took about ten shots from different angles and this was the best I could manage. By the way, the new hospital is right behind this beautiful building, and it's so effing ugly by comparison.

This is The Grange, the building I currently call home. It's been converted to house about twelve residents and registrars. We each have a living room with double bed, kitchen, and bathroom. Think of it as a comfortable and quaint hotel (but without the cost).

This is a shot of the inside of The Grange. The age of the building gives it the atmosphere of a murder mystery novel, I guess. All the rooms look like this, except for mine, which was tacked on around the back and looks a little bit scungier. Oh well. I'd include a shot of my living space, but I really should clean it up a bit first...

2008-07-03T23:26:00.002+10:00

Things I liked about this week:

1. Tonight ending. It was a long, long shift of constant work.

2. Kung Fu Panda. I saw this on Monday night by myself. It was funny. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it because I didn't have to think.

3. Talking to a patient about the Moscow Metro whilst cannulating him.

4. Doing a pleural tap on a patient (never done one before!).

5. Going shopping and making another tomato and pasta dish loaded with garlic and basil, and trying to reduce the sauce but semi-failing.

6. Having the nurses on med ward buy me Lindt chocolate because I answer my pager promptly and never say no to a request (even when I finished work two hours ago). Their words, not mine.

7. Playing the piano quietly in rehab ward.

8. Tomorrow being FRIDAY, me having both days off, and next week having two registrars so hopefully my workload will go down.

9. Finding out that the kitchen girls had a bet going on how old I was. Someone even thought I was mid-thirties, apparently.

10.

Peace.

Complex

2008-07-02T19:58:00.002+10:00

I finish work at 4.30pm, but my pager sometimes goes off later than that. I didn't leave hospital til 7pm today, but I won't get paid for the extra two-and-a-half hours because you don't get paid for unrostered overtime. Tomorrow I'll get in at 8am and finish work at 11pm (this IS rostered overtime that I get paid for). I am hoping with all my might that I won't be flat out non-stop busy.

I am really exhausted. Surprisingly so. Yesterday morning I got out of bed and sat down cross-legged on the floor and didn't want to move. Not surprising, really. I had to work fourteen hours on Sunday, then on average ten/eleven hours on the weekdays. How am I going to cope with extended hours tomorrow and then Friday to follow up. At least I get a full weekend this week. Two days off never looked so inviting.

Is this what it feels like to be stretched to breaking point? The prospect of eating right now makes me feel drained. I have to iron two shirts tonight (won't have time tomorrow night) and shave so that I don't look too much like a bum tomorrow, and I'm dreading the prospect of forcing myself to do both. Even blogging is a challenge.

By the way, not this weekend but next weekend I'm working Friday evening and Saturday, so my apologies to anyone who was planning on coming out for a weekend.

Digital Mystery

2008-06-23T21:43:00.000+10:00

Who is diehard3?

Colloidal Madness

2008-06-21T21:59:00.003+10:00

Let me tell you about my Friday evening. I was supposed to finish work at four thirty, but someone died and I had to certify his death and write out the certificate, which was difficult because I couldn't get much access to his past medical history, so I didn't end up leaving 'til about 6.15.

After arranging a ride (a little later than expected) I got picked up by a car full of nurses (none younger than 48), and got driven to The Chifley Hotel for a social club thing. I was wearing my bunnet backwards, of course, which attracted some very unsubtle piercing gazes from the regulars. Once there, I chatted to nurses and allied health (for some reason I was the only doctor there), and ended up getting a free massage from some guy who owns a massage parlour in Bathurst. When he told me he owned a massage parlour, I laughed and enthusiastically said on my first day in Bathurst I saw the dodgiest massage parlour EVER that was really obviously a front for another form of physical entertainment. It turned out to be his massage parlour, and he frostily informed me that no such shenanigans went on there. The conversation stalled pretty quickly from there.

After dinner at The Chifley, we migrated to a pub called The Family. There was a band there, which was pretty average, but all the nurses got up and danced and enjoyed themselves immensely. One (who could have been my mother), kept pulling me onto the floor for a bit of dirty dancing, but I wasn't too keen to start a reputation so early in my Bathurst term. Then, the same nurse introduced me to a young girl who was her hairdresser. I said hi, and she said, come outside and meet my friend. So I spent the next twenty minutes politely chatting with two girls from Oberon who knew my grandparents!

Pulled away from that conversation, I was back with my Corona watching the nurses groove it away on the floor when I noticed a moderately attractive blonde dancing expressively. She saw me looking at her, and actually came up to ME and said: "come and dance with me. You know you want to." Far be it from me to refuse a lady.

Then, we went onto the big part of the evening: The Oxford. This is the only nightclub in Bathurst, and is apparently THE place to go. It had a cover charge, but I got in for free with two of my nurse friends (probably because we're older than their usual crowd). Long story short, I was unimpressed. It was pretty empty and there wasn't much talent. And no girl tried to pick me up, so I didn't like the place. Dirty-Dancing Nurse got pretty up close and personal, but that was just normal by that part of the evening.

By about 2am, we started the long walk home. Dirty-Dancing Nurse lives near me, and she was slurring on about showing me some bench in the large park next to hospital, but I was busting to take a piss, so I said goodbye and walked very quickly home.

And woke up this morning with a cold. Stupid alcohol always seems to dampen my immune system. And I only had four coronas!

Not bad for a first weekend in The 'Thurst...

I Have A Strong Thurst

2008-06-17T19:01:00.002+10:00

Just a quick blog to let you all know I am in Bathurst and all is fine. I'm living in a large old building near the hospital, which looks like it would make a great setting for a haunted house or a murder mystery. It has been portioned off like a hotel, with separate rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens for each resident. Actually, it's a pretty sweet deal, because we all know each other so it's pretty social, with a fairly substantial amount of shouting and food sharing going on. Cath, you'll be pleased to note I made a tomato-based pasta dish with red wine and coriander that totally won over a carnivore/non-believer. Plus I've already found places that sell Tofutti and No Egg, plus a lot of vegetarian BBQ stuff. Good-o!

The hospital is pretty modern and clean (and not nearly as bad as the newspapers made out). All the staff are friendly and they already invited me out to a social night on Friday. Past experience is encouraging me not to drink. Plus, on my first day I got in the local TV news with a couple of other interns! Prime News wanted a shot of the president of the Clinical Excellence Commission welcoming the newbies to hospital, and at 6pm there were a couple of decent shots of my lanky hippy frame earnestly drinking in everything he said. I'm such a media whore.

I've also become a member of the aquatic centre and already went for a swim. I have to walk a kilometer there and back, so I won't be doing that more than twice a week.

Gotta go. I'm meeting dad for dinner, and I want to try that nice looking Thai place. Ciao!

Is It True?

2008-06-08T12:39:00.002+10:00

Have you ever had a moment where everything confuses the hell out of you, and then suddenly a new corner of the painting is illuminated and the picture as a whole transforms from meaningless random strokes to something with depth or definition?

I ask because I'm just reading The Great Gatsby (one of the many classics I've never read before for some reason or another), and for the first eighty or so pages it was filled with self-absorbed capricious characters who talked utter rubbish and lied repeatedly with a flashy smile; the sort of transparent characters it would be very easy to dislike if met in person. Even the narrator blows his own trumpet quite willingly about how he is probably the only truthful person he has ever known.

Perhaps this is part of the genius of Fitzgerald. Hating the narrator is a tricky manoevre, as we are privy to his or her thoughts and feelings, therefore more likely to comprehend the reasons behind what would otherwise seem a random act of unkindness. I was just settling in to the idea of reading a book with a desultory narrative about the vacuous elite when the author slammed some solid painful truth into the story and forced me to feel sorry for some of the characters.

What a mean author.

Note: I have not yet finished reading the book, so please don't write any spoilers in the comments.

More Art, With Less Matter

2008-06-02T14:22:00.003+10:00

Apparently talking to someone, following a conversation, and maintaining eye contact now equates to 'I want to jump your non-bones". Sorry, had to squeeze in a Family Guy quote there.

Rumours are wafting about at work that I'm practically creaming over one of the nurse unit managers. She'd be... ooh, in her late 40s to early 50s, and I'm thinking she might have started the rumour herself, because by far the most fascinating thing about her is the age of the fuck-buddy she's accepted into her boudoir, which is 29.

I have to admit, I really have no one to blame but myself if juicy Cam-rumours are flying about, seeing as my behaviour has been a little erratic at best recently. On Friday evening there was a staff night at O'Donaghue's, and I ended up spilling beer down a female ambo's pants, and then giving her mouth a bit of a suck while her husband was watching nearby. He took it extremely well, meaning I didn't get punched. I also got a lap-dance from at least two nurses, and a mobile number from a (male) ambo.

I also very responsibly called in sick the next day.

More news...

2008-05-31T11:38:00.002+10:00

...this time pretty damn amusing. I'm talking about the antics of the Chelsea Flower Show, of course, in which Jamie Durie committed a serious faux pas by correcting Prince Phillip, who thought that some plant in Durie's prize-winning garden was a fern, not a cycad.

At this point I must admit, I would've made the same mistake; in fact, only now after reading the article was I inspired to skim-research the differences between the two families. I guess I'm trying to look at this from both sides. Jamie Durie is possibly an over-enthusiastic garden dweeb who can't keep his mouth shut, but on the other hand, Prince Phillip is possibly an arrogant, racist, stubborn dick. I personally wouldn't've minded a public correction if it was done reasonably politely (must learn things somehow), but I constantly have to remind myself that some people don't have much of an interest in expanding their knowledge base, and are blissful in their ignorance.

What I find interesting about this minor display of solecistic childishness is that it seems to have inflamed the republican debate in several UK newspapers, and has brought to the surface all that simmering racism between the UK and Australia.

For your benefit (and with corrected spelling and grammar), here are some comments inspired by the confusion between ferns and cycads:

The English won't be told anything. As for opening their tiny minds to be informed and educated, forget it. They are arrogant and ignorant and give the impression that if there is something they don't know or understand, it's not worth knowing anyway. You can only pity the narrow-minded ignorance and rudeness shown by the D of E, and by Tim Walker who obviously admires and respects this appalling behaviour.

Cam's note: Tim Walker was the author who wrote the damning expose in the UK Telegraph that inspired all of the comments posted. His article, which seems a little sarcastic to me anyway, can be absorbed here.

Well done Prince Philip. Mr Durie, like most Australians and other riff raff, needs to be ignored. As we sent our non-desirables to the penal colony in the past, why are they now being allowed back into Britain?

What? Is British Royalty now required to show respect to a common gardener from the penal colonies? The boring little wombat-molester should be grateful to be allowed to display his dull fern/cycad/duckweed or whatever in front of the Duke. Durie apparently became a male stripper by boring his own pants off.

Cam's note: whilst that last sentence is pretty funny, I can't help but feel a little sorry for Mr Durie. His time as a stripper will apparently never be laid to rest.

Well, there you have it Mr Walker, you've publicly confirmed that the British living in the UK are incredibly unfriendly. Maybe, if more people in your country took time out to listen to each other there would be fewer senseless murders and people hurting their children. You should be embarrassed about your smugness.

Cam's note: there you have it folks, learn more about your plants to cut down violent crimes.

1001 Nights

2008-05-29T22:57:00.003+10:00

It is a sad, sad world we live in when simply wearing an Arabian-style cloth is enough to trigger this response. Ridiculous.

It makes me wonder, would Aladdin have still been made if the political climate mimicked that of this decade?

Cauterising The Rainbow

2008-05-24T23:07:00.003+10:00

I did this before, and I'll do it again.

Dotter is a man who truly makes it difficult to see the beauty within, but I see it, shining through his pores, making his skin glisten. He is a man of values and rigid scientific decorum. His face is a mixture of apathy and sarcasm, although I think this may be a front for an unsatisfying existence. People avoid him, because he has a lot to say, and no one to hear him. Wise words blanket him, but they are scratchy like wool.

The Russian is not actually Russian, but another nationality altogether, with a decoy to frustrate those like myself who are interested in all the facets of one's personality. She has an exotic, ethereal beauty which I believe she has grown into. Her shoulders are carved out of crystal and she is one of those who wields power without forcefulness- a rare skill.

Song Of The Hill is hiding old fractures that don't show up on an x-ray film. She hides them with happiness; this too is fleeting and unrealistic. She makes me think that happiness is always a transitory state and that indifference is our real defining quality. Her hair flies out behind her and she walks in a way that bends light around her. It is always safe to talk to her.

Da Niao likes languages. He is fascinated by the knowledge that if he throws Japanese at me I will respond in kind. Always pleasant, he is the type of senior I want to be: approachable and fallible. His words are delivered in an abstract melody, not unkind on the ears. I like him immensely.

Soup thinks I am arrogant and heavily involved in a love affair with myself; despite this, she has a galloping sense of humour that she chooses to share with me, which is remarkably attractive. She is one of the few people I know who I believe has equal levels of internal and external confidence.

Frank jumps in and out of the emergency, bringing bed-ridden work with him. He is friendly and engaging, almost to a fault, and I can't help but like him for this easy quality. His appearance demands attention from others, and his playfulness demands attention from me. There is a streak of danger here, rarely shown, and not yet to me.

Godzillette is in a difficult position. She cannot escape the spotlight on the stage, 'though I secretly suspect she refuses to exit stage left. It is difficult to like her due to what I perceive to be a major personality flaw. Unfortunately, it will never be corrected because her mind is is in overdrive but closed to any hand wanting to change gears.

Kim is unafraid to be forceful, despite existing in a double minority. Perhaps this has hardened her? She vividly illustrates her personal life, and cannot break free of materialism and unrealistic expectations squeezed from storybooks. Despite this, she listens when I comment. She is unfaithful in her mind, and unfaithful in her appearance, but faithful in her behaviour, where the only true faith lies. Apparently.

This is but a few of the floating personalities in ED.

Photo Time!

2008-05-18T10:09:00.003+10:00

Today's theme is christianity, brought to you by a particularly funny Facebook group.

And my personal favourite...

The Sea In A Frog

2008-05-12T17:13:00.003+10:00

My gosh I'm a financial dynamo today. Normally bonds and stocks and franked and unfranked hoodads jumble me about like a hurricane sweeping through my fragile brain, but today I took all the stacks of paper I've been accumulating and rolled over all my superannuation into one account. In the words of the ultracool Highlander: "there can be only one." I'm sure that cinematic gem was a warning about attracting unnecessary fees by patronising multiple super funds.

I don't know about anyone else, but economics pisses me off, because it seems the concepts are easy to grasp, but the arbitrary names assigned to each are a bitch to get around. Example: I used to own shares in the Commonwealth Bank, faithfully receiving a statement each financial year that was just dripping with excitement to let me know I'd earned eighty dollars in franked dividends. Not once did uncle CBA explain to me who the fuck Frank was and why the fuck he was messing around with my money. Eventually I picked my lazy arse up and wandered over to a site on the internet and worked out what was going on, and much to my delight and surprise, it turned out to be quite simple to grasp.

Don't misunderstand me here, I find economics to be fascinating despite my frustrations, and if I have an opportunity for one of my much brighter friends to elucidate some niggly point for me, I'll take it. It's just that economics reminds me of greed, and I think I'm greedy enough as is, and if I learn more about economics, I might just snap and invest in ways to become richer. But I never seem to be able to forget that the richer I become, the poorer must someone else become to keep the balance.

Cotton Blend

2008-05-07T09:20:00.002+10:00

I'm wearing new clothes, and I feel uncomfortable. Not because I'm wearing new clothes, but because I'm going back to Westmead for an hour today. Unfortunately, this is a necessity. If it weren't, I'd be at home watching and relating to Dexter.

Looking back, it seems many of my posts are about something stupid that I've done (or not done, or refused to do), and how I could've done it better. I think recent events have sucked reality right in under my door and permeated my room with past actions that I self-righteously defended but perhaps should have walked away from. My thoughts are: if you see something you think is very wrong, do you walk away and remain uninvolved, or do you confront the issue in an attempt to change it?

Probably depends on how well you know the person, how severe the lack of scruples are, and how likely it is for the person to change. That said, I am only now remembering several similar instances in my past that apply, and not once have I been eloquent or tactful enough to do anything beyond cause pointless soap-opera dramatics.

I have a friend who told me from the beginning: 'walk away'. He didn't know the whole picture, and how personal the problem was. Everything stoic little Cam decided to pretend not to care about came oozing back to the surface and little Cam was angry like he'd never really been before.

And the lack of power over other people puts things violently into perspective, and I'm relaxing with the freedom of knowing nothing will change, and that people rotten to the core will remain so because when they look in the bathroom mirror their skin is unblemished and clean, and they smile to themselves and say "damn, I look good today," and that's as deep as they bother to observe.

Cut

2008-04-30T22:53:00.005+10:00

Today I sutured up a knife wound, inflicted on a patient yesterday evening at the same place I was loitering not four hours earlier: Mt Druitt train station. What an immensely sobering experience. Unsurprisingly, I was a little more apprehensive than usual when walking home this evening. I could've been the one bleeding in ED with a deep laceration to my left lower abdomen if I'd had a very late shift. I've never been knifed before. I guess it would hurt a lot.

In other news, it dawned on me again yesterday, as I was trying not to be repulsed by a couple making out in public, that I am the only one of my immediate friends from school not in a long-term stable relationship. And so I thought, hmmm... maybe I should actually attempt to change this situation, rather than sit back and 'enjoy' being single. It really is a frightening prospect, having to justify yourself to another person. This got me to thinking about what I could offer to someone. I tried to phrase it like a personals ad. This is what I'd sound like, I think:

Tall, thin 26 yo male with GSOH and stable income, musical, opinionated pseudo-hippy vegan who eats a lot and loves animals, seeking anyone to challenge his dreary routine-saturated life with some juicy STD.

That put a smile on my face for about five minutes.

Heuristic Experiences

2008-04-17T21:58:00.003+10:00

I've fallen out of a comfortable routine. I blame the seven day emergency roster and Ken's death attracting scores of loud people sleeping in every room of the house. They've all gone now, leaving my mother and two brothers behind. The house feels a little empty, which is welcome in some ways. I have certainly been affected more than I thought I would be, not so much by a departure but by the inevitable change that comes with it. Canceling Reader's Digest, re-doing the voicemail message, no more Fantales hiding in the cupboard. I am craving physical contact in all the wrong ways, and it makes me ashamed.

And the day after, by all accounts a very enjoyable day, was marred by one person who started a conversation with me as if nothing was wrong. And then I was reminded that nothing was wrong anymore, except that I was wrong. I seem to be unable to shake off old baggage particularly well, and I don't really ever think I had a very thick skin. I think now is as good a time as any to learn how to be a normal human again. And perhaps I could grow a nice turtle shell, like everyone else seems to.

2008-04-06T07:57:00.001+10:00

Rest in peace, Kenneth John Melville
7th July 1939 - 6th April 2008

Never Gonna Hate This Song

2008-04-02T11:59:00.002+11:00

I was Rickrolled so effing much yesterday. I'm assuming it was because of April Fool's Day.

Problem is, I really enjoy cheesy 80s songs, so every time I got rickrolled I settled back to enjoy the entire music video. I even hummed along.

For shaaaaaame...

Rhinoviral Adventures

2008-04-01T16:16:00.003+11:00

Poor Cam is sick and had to take the day off work. I've only got a cold, but a doctor sneezing and coughing around ED with a sniffly red nose isn't a particularly good idea. Problem is, one can't take any sick leave during the three months 'probationary period', so I'm not getting paid for today. I think this is a bad idea, because it encourages sick interns to come to work anyway. I chose to stay home because I don't want to infect already sick people, but I can imagine others simply turning up to work, despite being contagious, and 'getting on with it' to avoid a pay cut.

To make this situation more bizarre, I have a seven day roster now, and have been allocated Wednesday to Friday off. Which means the only day I've worked this week was and will be Monday. I'm working both days of the weekend though, but what can you do? People don't just get sick during business hours.

What a difference this is from vascular surgery...

Candid-a Common Fungal Infection

2008-03-30T12:11:00.003+11:00

When is it that people move away from Disneyesque morals and allegories? I guess for everyone it depends on how much they've been sheltered and how quickly they accrue life experience. Whilst I cling onto ideals because they demonstrate a pleasant goal to aim for, I guess it doesn't hurt to acknowledge that many ideals are probably unattainable. I refuse, however, to discard them, because it seems to me that I'm pessimistic enough. That said, I'm a reasonably sheltered person, and I have to acknowledge that in some ways it makes me vulnerable.

My latest crash-and-burn from Disney? The ideal of honesty. More specifically, the ideal that being honest (i.e "true to your heart"- the most painfully trite phrase to be borne from the English language) will always set a bad situation to rights.

Honesty is like a daffodil; it looks attractive, but used the wrong way, it can be poisonous. That was the first simile I could think of. If someone can think of something better, feel free to enlighten me. I'm thinking it takes a certain person to truly absorb the impact of an honest statement. Most normal people don't like honesty if it's threatening or disconcerting; denial, contradiction, or even anger are common reactions. Perhaps a more intelligent person can identify a situation where someone is being honest and encourage them to speak candidly. Not doing so will simply discourage the speaker in future.

I recently made someone angry and defensive by being candid. I tried to be calm and respectful, but they either misinterpreted my meaning or were so incensed by what I had to say they resorted to the threat of physical violence. It truly is extraordinary how far off the planet I really am compared to other people. Lesson learnt.

A Pastoral Tragedy

2008-03-24T18:39:00.002+11:00

I hope everyone had a satisfyingly enjoyable long weekend. I filled my four days off with my grandmother's eighty-five birthday.

On Friday afternoon I drove with an older and younger brother (and girlfriend) to my late grandfather's farm, a pastoral scene of rolling hills and temperate Australian flora located a little South-East of Oberon. It is a beautiful, peaceful place that is now mostly locked within my childhood. With my grandfather's death in 2004 (whilst I was in Japan and unable to attend his funeral), the farm's future became somewhat tenuous, as my grandmother did not want to live there alone. I have recently learned that the farm will be maintained by a cousin of mine, and I am selfishly breathing a sigh of relief that the farm will not be passed along to the faceless crowd.

Although my grandmother now lives in the township of Oberon, the party was held in the old farmhouse, and it was a gaudy reunion of Armstrongs and other faces slightly older and more in focus than what I remember. Every male Armstrong is tall. The trademark Armstrong sarcasm is in full show here, although my Grandmother (fondly nicknamed 'teaser' from long ago when I was in primary school and the first sight of the lonely house with winking lights and sheep grazing nearby brought about a sense of excitement) is a little quieter and withdrawn from the the vociferous banter than what I remember.

Fifteen years ago she was seventy and I was eleven. At that age, my grandmother seemed very old and from a world away. Now, I can only remember fleeting moments, but in retrospect she was younger and fitter than I gave her credit for. It seemed like Gingkin was a halcyon refuge compared to Sydney, but sometime between the age of childhood and now it was taken away and replaced by a disused farmhouse with tattered windows and little furniture. My farmland grandparents have been replaced by a single grandmother more subdued, perhaps by age, perhaps by the death of her husband.

In contrast, I have at least five cousins who have had children of their own. Now these children visit the farm and their great-grandmother. I doubt the experience is the same as it was for me, but I am still grateful that they have this place to visit. I didn't know any other child in primary school who was able to retreat to such a bucolic masterpiece, and I felt a little sorry for them.

A Lesson For Cam

2008-03-21T09:21:00.003+11:00

Earlier this week I got a taste of the truly deplorable nature of Riff scum.

It had been a long shift, as usual, and I had been forced to take a train to Penno and transfer to a mountains train at about 9ish or so in the evening. I was in my own little world, workclothes on, headphones in, iPod in pocket, bag slung around my shoulder, and I left the platform to look for a bin. Walking over to the taxi rank, I was suddenly pushed by a girl in her mid-teens, about half my size, and scoring pretty high on the bogan factor. In shock, I took my headphones off and asked: "what?"

"She said, you got any cigarettes on you?" The sweet young thing asked, ever so politely. I answered in irritation "no, and if you touch me again, I'll call the police." Bad move.

I left her at the taxi rank, and wandered over to the train timetables (privately still appalled that someone could be so rude and brazen) and was working out when the next train to Emu Plains would be, when a guy a little younger than me walked over and demanded in a pugnacious tone: "what did you call my cousin?". I replied, a little irritated (but mostly nervous): "I didn't call her anything. I told her if she touched me again I'd call the police." He wandered away, muttering "you're lucky" as he left, because people seem to enjoy asserting themselves through the threat of physical violence. Note exhibit A: my younger brother.

A little unnerved, I was visited a third time half a minute later. This time, my social callers were the little bogan girl who initially pushed me, and an older girl (roughly my age, and actually reasonably attractive). The older girl asked: "what did you do to her?" For the third time, I said that I had threatened to call the police if the younger girl touched me again. Older Girl then said: "she says you grabbed her tit."

I saw red then, and gave the younger girl a disgusted look and said pretty viciously: "you little liar". Younger girl had the decency to look a little guilty at this point, but I just put my headphones on and walked back onto the Penrith platform. I heard acid-toned words behind me, no doubt various insults being flung at the back of my head.

On the platform, I had about half an hour to mull over the situation, and two points were loudest in my mind. One, all it would've taken to ruin my career and reputation would have been for that girl to have told the police that I sexually harassed her. And to be perfectly honest, I hated all women for about ten minutes, because how safe can I feel in a supposedly policed society when any woman can simply make up a story like that? If I had felt it necessary at any point to contact the police through threats to my person, I would have been the one worse off in the long term. That little girl would've gotten off with a warning. I would've gotten off with a permanent black mark.

The second point I thought about was, she never would have pushed me if she didn't have the support of an older guy and girl in her presence. Why were they not correcting her behaviour? Even worse, why were they reinforcing her antisocial behaviour by confronting me? I then felt sorry for the girl, because her older family have committed her to a lifestyle that will probably see her scraping the barrel at best, or in jail or dead at worst.

Poor sad family.

Facebook Song

2008-03-15T14:39:00.001+11:00

For those few of you who haven't yet had the pleasure...

People All Around

2008-03-08T16:50:00.003+11:00

Haven't written anything for a while, so I'm a little afraid that any creativity I might once have had is subtly leeching away, because I'm really struggling to find something decent to write about. So here is my latest attempt to transliterate my thought language. I will write about people I know on my ward (all de-identified, of course).

Shrek is pretty high up on the hospital hierarchy. I don't often see him much, and I'm pretty sure he would command considerable respect if he wasn't so deadpan and ambivalent. I get the feeling I could make any outlandish suggestion and he'd say "yeah sure, let's try that" with a care factor quickly approaching zero. He almost had a facial expression once. I believe he is the sort of person who would struggle to have an interesting sex life. Or perhaps would time it to a set point each week, a la "oh, it's Sunday. Well, guess we'd better bump uglies, then".

Holy Mary is so pious she actually fasts for lent. I find purposeful starvation an extremely frightening concept. She is attractive (in a dark, exotic way), ebullient beyond mortal dispositions, and has probably swept up the attention of many a lustful lad around the place. That is, until they find out she also wields considerable intelligence and doesn't believe in sex before marriage. She is one of the extreme few who is probably single because others simply do not measure up. This is unfortunate because, unless she wishes to remain single, she may have to sweep through the sewers to nab a man.

Yul Brynner is a Filipino nurse. He jokes around a lot, and has real presence of character, which I find very disarming. Although he looks young, his very short hair has flicks of grey in it that I hope my hair will mimic once I start to wither. His behaviour and station are a little unusual and difficult to categorise. This is very frustrating.

Li'l Sue is a misnomer, because she is neither little nor Sue. She has been given this moniker because her voice is high-pitched and twee, and does not match her appearance. She is a senior nurse, and therefore prone to foul moods, whereby she speaks harshly and without reserve. I didn't like her at first, but have since discovered facets to her character which forced me to re-evaluate my dislike. She is a 'maker', and probably has a tab at Spotlight.

Diamond is a young Indian nurse with intense eyes. In our first conversation, we discovered that we had both lived in Japan, so we good-naturedly argued about the best cities to live in. She is short, petite, and usually only enters conversation if invited. I've caught her looking at me several times. Someone needs to sit down and chat to her about being careful of predators like myself who feed on attention.

Glamourpuss is a Sri-Lankan intern. She is very easy on the eyes, and has an impeccable sense of fashion, however her looks verge on the supermodel-esque, which is a little plastic for me. She is graceful and deliberate in all her movements, and has a perfect smile filled with rows of perfect white teeth. She is young for an intern, but seemingly self-assured, like she would be quite capable of running a business. She invited me to a party this afternoon, but I was afraid it would be full of perfect people and that I would probably feel a little uncomfortable and mismatched, so I opted out.

Mr Darcy is an English doctor in surgical high dependancy who attracted the attention of Holy Mary by being both 'cute and charming'. He is a friendly guy who I initially thought was gay because he found several excuses to touch me, was quite keen to start up conversations, and showed me some tricks of the medical trade, then settled down later on into a more 'standard' friendly banter when I ignored him. He never wrote notes in the medical records, and never wrote pathology forms, which bugged me because it meant I had to do extra work when my patients were transferred to his care.

The Kraken is a senior nurse who is attached to the vascular surgery team. She has an acid tongue and an Eastern European accent, and I like her immensely because she will always be the bad cop when I want something done and am too polite to push the issue. She tolerates my bizarre sense of humour the way a mother would: by shaking her head and clucking her tongue whilst a tiny smile dances about her face. She is more than happy to go along with my joke about her breathing fire whenever a patient complains of being too cold.

Donkey Kong is a consultant who looks quite acromegalic to me. He has giant hands, and his arms are so long and solid he reminds me of a gorilla. That said, I've never seen him raise his voice, or get angry, or beat his chest in frustration, or eat a banana. He loves to teach, but has no concept of the job descriptions of those underneath him. For this reason, my poor fellow intern has become a super-secretary of sorts, running around the hospital desperately trying to organise all the random crap he throws at her.

And this is but a small scraping of the whirlpool of personalities that merge and contrast on my ward...

Don't Sue Me, Mr Geisel

2008-02-24T09:01:00.003+11:00

See Cam.

See how tired Cam looks.

See Cam work 70 hours this week.

See Cam work all yesterdary from 8 in the morning, and not stop for a break 'til half past six, finally leaving hospital at 11 in the evening.

See Cam almost lose his cool when a nurse paged to complain because he hadn't had time to chart vancomycin for a ward after he'd been working solidly for four hours.

Sleep Cam, Sleep.

Bouncing Off Clouds

2008-02-19T20:17:00.004+11:00

Today I saw bats. Hundreds of them, gliding across the dusky sky on my way home from the station after almost twelve hours on the ward. They were all more or less headed in the same direction, though some jostled about and played up, looping around and flying off at unpredictable angles. These were the outliers; the few who decide to go against the pack and appreciate the fun contained within a single errant move. The avant-garde of the bat world! my mind's voice announced, much to my amusement.

I think I walked with my eyes looking up more than they were looking in front, yet I didn't walk into anything or anyone. My feet more or less decided to lead me home while the rest of me floated in the sky. Life was good for ten minutes today.

2008-02-17T11:34:00.003+11:00

Although this is markedly premature, I find that now that I have a salary, I'm aching to go on a holiday somewhere really cool and not Australian. Holiday time is fixed for spring, so it's a while away yet, but it never hurts to prepare. Here are some possible holiday destinations:

1. England. I want to say that I've been somewhere in Europe, and I really want to do a castle tour. Maybe the entire United kingdom plus Ireland, or something. Also an overnight stay in France, or Portugal. Maybe even jump across the Iberian peninsula to North Africa.

2. Antarctica. This is about as far away from Asia as possible. Not that I have anything particularly against Asia, but I've a year in total in China and Japan, and I want to share the lurve with the rest of the world. Antarctica would be awesomely megacool, plus I could tap dance with penguins.

3. Iceland. I feel like circumnavigating a craggy volcanic island with few trees and no snakes. Plus maybe everyone will look like Björk. And any country that calls their head of state by his first name must be reasonably relaxed.

4. USofA. This for two reasons. One, to see Nick in Bloomington, and two, to go traipsing around riding record-breaking rollercoasters. In particular, I have my eye on Kingda-Ka in Jersey.

5. The Galapagos. The evolutionist's Mecca.

6. New Zealand. Geographically stunning (and feasible), I've often said that New Zealand seems to look like Japan, but without the people. Plus going to a country that more or less speaks English seems like a luxury to me right now.

7. Dubai. I only put this in 'cause suddenly everyone seems to want to go to a plastic tourist haven, swarming with illegal aliens, and built in a desert. And Los Angeles is too polluted.

What's In A Screen?

2008-02-15T08:40:00.002+11:00

There is a consultant on my team, who we will call Joel, on account of his red hair. Joel is a pretty cool guy for a doctor. He has a sense of humour, decent people skills, and is the sort of guy I could see at the pub with a beer, adroitly disguising his professional status until some intrepid coquette asks what he does for a living. But more importantly, I deeply respect Joel after I heard him turn down weekend work because he had organised to take his kids sailing.

An example of Joel's sense of humour is as follows: a patient develops an embolus, which blocks an artery, so he goes for a surgical procedure to get rid of it, called an embolectomy. Straightforward enough. Afterwards, Joel is telling me he wants to hunt for a reason why this patient developed an embolus, so he asked for blood tests for a thrombophilia and vasculitic screen. I queried what was in the latter, having never written a script for one before, so he said C3 and C4, ANA, CRP, and ANCA, including C-ANCA, P-ANCA, and W-ANCA.

After the W-ANCA part, he paused, looking at me expectantly as I was writing it all down. I stared back, and suddenly it clicked that there was no such thing as W-ANCA, and that in fact I was the W-ANCA for being so serious and dour. He started laughing, and I rolled my eyes and announced that I was far too mature for this, but I couldn't stop myself from smiling at the same time.

See, doctors have a sense of humour too.

2008-02-11T21:43:00.000+11:00

I am frustrated by a nonsense word: cannulation. So frustrated, in fact, I sacrificed precious time today to practice on arm dummies down at the clinical skills lab with a nice lady called Evelyn, who is so full of sympathy and concern that I want to tear her eyes out and shove them down her throat. I don't want fucking sympathy, I want to be competent.

Last year, in pre-internship, my cannula success rate was hit and miss. I'd say for every cannula I got in, there was at least one I didn't. This year, however, I swear my last fifteen or so attempts were met with nada but wincing patients and my apologetic infinite frustration at my own lack of skill and talent. The feeling of uselessness is all pervasive, as now that you're a doctor suddenly you have to be perfect or you get The Look.

And half the patients respond, when I ask to cannulate them because they need IV fluids or drugs, by saying "are you any good?", and I want to say "no, I'm fucking shithouse actually, but how do you expect me to get better if you only let the Anaesthetic consultant go near your veins? Now shut up and let me have a go before I strangle you with a tourniquet."

So today I marched on down to the clinical skills lab, in a sea of red, almost ready to lose my wall-of-brick patience (which few people have ever seen me do) and declared that I wanted a silicon arm to practice cannulation. Evelyn helped me set them up, and then watched my technique. And wouldn't you know it, every single fucking time (of about ten attempts) I got the cannula in the damn fake arms. No problems there, says Evelyn. Maybe drop your carrying angle a little, but otherwise it's fine. Let me know how you go. And then back to the ward I go, and twice try to put a cannula into a renal patient for a fellow intern who's swamped. And twice fail, and apologise to the patient, humiliated that yet again I am still an incompetent fuck and frustrated because I don't know what exactly it is I'm doing wrong.

It's the same story. I have no problems getting flashback into the cannula, but somehow I'm doing something wrong because the damn cannula won't advance properly and I can't flush it. So close to stabbing myself tonight.