Terrorist, I am not

After finish the brief specialist ward round in Labor Room, I made a brief stop to triage to see if there's any new patient.

There was one. And none of the tagging house officers was there. Only a 2-months house officer clerking. To my knowledge, there were 4 house officers tagging and 2 were assigned to Labor Room and Triage.

Clerking new cases is the essential for every taggers to gain exposure to wider range of patients. The labor room was empty except for a parity 2 mother who just delivered.

It's forgivable for a tagger to be scrubbed in to assist in Caesarean, but not the other tagger who knew there's a patient in Triage yet chose to sit down in Labor Room to read 'something'.

I decided to make the obvious more obvious. A notice was being put up to remind taggers to clerk cases.

The nurses instantly stood up and exclaimed 'Ini orang tak takut la' (This, no one will be scared of)

 

 

"I'm sorry. Terrorist, I am not. This is how things should be, and how new doctors can learn. There is no need to terrorize"

That's the wonderful world of tagging. Taggers are free to do anything they wished to do. Regulations are there, but breaking them wasn't met with any repercussions.

I remembered vividly, I took the trouble to invite (red carpet and all) a tagger into operation theater to observe a laparoscopy procedure for a stable ectopic pregnancy only to have him saying sayonara at 10 pm sharp. The surgeon just inserted the Veress needle. He could have stayed on for another 30mins and he would have learnt.

He wasn't the bright one around, yet he chose to ignore all the learning opportunities. Sad, but true.

Few days back, it was a day in history when the obstetric Oncall MO was being summoned to assist in Emergency Gynae operation because house officers were 'never' exposed to laparoscopy and were fumbling. Gynae Oncall MO had his hands full with another groundbreaking emergency with crimson tide.

It was also just in the recent week that taggers was liberally shy away from following a Consultant doing ward round. They would crowd 4 persons in the tiny Triage Room, or comically trying to assist MO in episiotomy suturing by 'holding the lights'.

Last time, taggers would follow round with their hands on the back and standing at back. I coined the term of 'Tagging consultants' for them. Now, they're 'Tagging Head of Department' because following Consultant's ward round is an elective thing.

I believe in the system. There is never a need to terrorize. Quoting and paraphrasing one of my colleague, we do not leave in the prehistoric era, we do not need dinosaurs going around terrorizing. Yet, I believe close adherent to the system is required.

There is just too much of injustice.
And personally, I am not sure whether the 'cable' behind them contributed to it.

Whether or not a house officers will be extended in the department is sometimes based on luck. It was agreed by the specialist in charge of them, as he came up with few exemplary legendary rotten apples who did not get extended for God-knows-why. If it was borderline poor, it is perfectly understandable and acceptable for the role of luck in getting them through.

There another house officer who got extended for putting down in her logbook, the hysterical testament of vaginal delivery in a 80years old and endometrial sampling for a post hysterectomy patient.

After her brief period of extra time, her logbook was re-examined. After correcting a few that she was previously caught in fraud, her logbook remains florid with other dishonest data, as if she doesn't really care and blatantly trying to challenge the integrity of the department without any remorse. Surprisingly, her fraudulent logbook was passed and there were no further extension.

Terrorist, I am not.
Speechless, I am.