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Hopefully this is not gauche to do but:
@self_made_human, how are you liking the U.K.? Haven't seen a legit update.
I'm greatly touched that someone remembers what I'm up to haha, thank you!
Ever since I got here, I've been mulling a proper effort post about the place, but haven't really had the time or energy. But since you asked, I'm certainly happy to summarize:
This time, it was far smaller a culture shock than when I was in England 2 years back. I know how things work, and the sight of double decker buses doesn't quite give the same "you're in foreign territory" vibes as they once did. Thankfully, I understand Scottish accents quite well, so no issues there either.
It's been terribly hectic, everything from dragging a large suitcase up Edinburgh (you'd swear you had to go uphill both ways), figuring out work, the millions of little things necessary when shifting countries, it's absolutely drained me.
I currently (and temporarily) live in the middle of nowhere, to be close to the hospital that's my first posting. I'll be moving to a respectable city in a few months, but this was what I opted for because I wanted to live closer to work till I acclimatised or bought a car.
Said work has been a chore. Psychiatry in the UK is rather different from my expectations, worsened by my initial placement being in Old Age psychiatry, with the majority of cases being dementia patients of some description. Wouldn't have been psych work back home, I tell you. It's boring, and not to my taste, I feel like a glorified geriatrician fussing more about last night's falls and who's had constipation (and can I shirk another PR, having made it 3 years into my career only ever having done one) instead of real psychiatric work. I can only hope my stint in adult and adolescent psychiatry is more interesting.
They've also had me running up and down the country, you don't have the luxury of working out of a single hospital during a residency like the rest of the planet. I swear I've done enough miles in a month and a half to circumnavigate Scotland.
The isolation is getting to me. It's been difficult surviving on my own. First time I've been away from home for this long, I tell you. I was nominally away living away from it for 4 years in med school, but in reality home was just a weekend bus ride away. Now I really haven't got anyone but distant relatives in the span of a continent.
I live out of the way, it's hard to make friends when everyone commutes in from the larger cities, though I have the saving grace of my landlord and landlady being lovely people. Another thing I hope changes with a move.
NHS bureaucracy is a headache, the sheer hassle I had to undergo in order to send a picture of a patient's rash to dermatology.. Can't just click a picture on my phone and send it over as is the norm back home, nope, breach of patient privacy. I had to dig out a digital camera approved for "clinical photography" lurking on the wards that predates microUSB and is likely as geriatric as the patients. Predictably, it didn't work (the old batteries blew up and had to be scraped out by me using a pencil, and I couldn't get photos off it if I tried as it needed drivers off a CD advertising Windows 98 compatibility, not we had an SD card or a way to read off one). I ended up googling the closest pictures I could find online and sending those off with fervent apologies. So much busy work and utter wastes of everyone's time, but it's how things are done here. I find it farcical that so many important investigations are indefinitely postponed because the patient declined when I asked if I could take their bloods or do an ECG, when they're involuntarily committed because they lack capacity in the first place. Leaving aside that doctors being responsible for taking bloods and performing ECGs would be farcical in most countries, not just India.
It's also bloody cold, unseasonably so for September, I can barely get out of bed in the morning, everyone agrees it's only really heater time in October.
I've been modestly depressed, for the reasons above. Occasionally I get to see the aspects of psychiatry that actually excite me, but they're few and far between at the moment. I can only pray it'll get better. Either way, it's going to be a long 3 years, and assuming I want to go in the UK, yet another 3. I'm being run ragged, and I can't quite muster up the energy to engage here like I used to. I'm sure I'll write a proper post eventually, but thanks for keeping tabs on this poor soul!
Moving to a small town can be tough if you don't know anyone, even if you're a native. I know plenty of people that did their residencies and law clerk service out in the sticks in Sweden and they sounded about as miserable as you.
Keep your chin up, It'll get better once you get to a city!
Also, get season appropriate clothing if you haven't already. I've seen so many Indian tech workers over here that are underdressed come winter and I know how miserable it can be, even if it's just walking to and from the bus. Just go to a goodwill if you don't want to buy something new.
Thank you, I'm certainly looking forward to the big city, albeit everyone here has been so lovely that I'll miss them when I'm gone. I never expected to make close friends up here, I just opted for the closest place I could find to somewhere that's rather out of the way, if I'd decided to commute from said big city, I'd be looking at an hour and a half of travel time every morning and evening, whereas it's as simple as a 10 minute bus now.
I did let my mother coax me into packing heavily for the winter, so I won't outright freeze, but as much as I abhorr the horrendous heat at home, I'm a creature of different climes, and it'll be a while till I adjust.
I'd bet, while I don't think I'll suffer too much from SAD (a serendipitous acronym, if not one intentionally named) due to my shunning of the sun, it's going to be an adjustment to waking up in the dark and stumbling home when it's dark at 4. I can only imagine it's even worse in Sweden!
Seeing as Stockholm is north of Kirkwall, I'd say so. But then again we're used to walking to school/work in the dark and walking home in the dark as well.
I have some family living up north though and they note that most of the people who move there move away again and it's never due to the cold. People just don't understand how oppressive it can be that the sun barely comes up above the horizon for months at a time (or at all). People think they know but they don't.
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