Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 181
- 2
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I am losing my mind from studying. The only positive is that I'm also losing weight, quite a bit of it. Turns out a diet of pizza, prescription stimulants and stress is effective for weight loss, not that I'd recommend it.
The exam I have to give in order to get into psychiatry training in the UK was originally designed to be administered to GPs, but COVID made quite a few other specialities adopt it because they couldn't conduct the standard interviews and couldn't be arsed to make their own exams.
I am absolutely sick of memorizing facts and figured that will be of zero relevance to my (hypothetical) career in psychiatry, something has gone very wrong if I'm confronted with a child with haematuria and a purpuric rash while working in that profession. ECG? Never heard of her. The worst part about those fucking things is that I manage to learn how to interpret them passably, usually before an exam, and then forget entirely a few months later. Of course, it is tradition that in some specialities, like orthopedics, the first thing that a Consultant does on being shown an ECG for their patient is to hand it over to the Reg with some excuse, who then sheepishly shows it to the most junior doctor at hand because they're the ones most likely to remember what the fucking squiggles mean. Or bleep Cardio directly.
Oh well, at least if I do make it this time, I will gladly accept it as a license to forget everything I've ever had to learn, in lieu of memorizing the myriad interactions of antipsychotics and anti-epileptic meds.
Don't get me started on the Situational Judgement Test, a cursed ethics component of the exam that involves guessing the correct way to order 5 options for handling an ethical dilemma, with no guarantee any of them will be remotely sane or relevant options. Especially when the GMC guidelines so utterly castrate and infantilize doctors that I am sometimes blown away by the fact that they take those dictats without coming to blows. Indian doctors don't give a shit what our regulators have to say, and even American ones aren't so utterly castrated.
Ah, my aunt comes to me begging for morphine because she's in acute pain. I recognize that's a bad idea to prescribe to her, even just on the grounds she's family, but no, even taking a look at her medical history and suggesting over the counter pain meds she can take while she's desperately searching for an out-of-hours GP or contemplating the >8h wait at the ER is somehow a bad choice.
FML, I'm going to RETVRN to my ancestors and till some fields first chance I get.
During COVID a bunch of UK doctors refused to come back to work:
It sounds like the NHS is a complete shambles. I saw an article saying that more was spent on litigation and payouts over maternity than maternity itself: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/maternity-payouts-twice-cost-of-care-times-health-commission-svdhsjhqk
I don't really know much about the NHS, never having worked there or experienced it. Sounds like a terminally ill bureaucracy in action.
The NHS is dysfunctional and sclerotic. Doctors are so unhappy with the state of affairs that they're striking regularly for almost a year now, primarily for pay as well as the terrible conditions. Salary raises have been sub-inflation for about 15 years.
Training is unnecessarily long, in comparison to international standards, and largely because the rotational aspect lets them shunt doctors over to subpar hospitals to meet staffing quotas without paying market wages.
The quality of care is going down the toilet, ER wait times are ridiculous, elective surgeries can take years. A psychiatry consultation for an ADHD prescription would take me about 2 years to get if I went through the NHS.
It's no surprise you heard that from an elderly medical professional. They remembered when doctors were respected and also decently paid, returning to the NHS must have been a shock (though this person is a nurse, but they've suffered too).
Many of the locals flee to fairer pastures, such as the US, or other Commonwealth countries, hence the NHS is propped up by international doctors for whom the terrible conditions are a step up still (like yours truly, not that I'm now sure it's an improvement). They're too scared to complain, accept subpar wages to get a foot in the door, and in general accept more abuse. At any rate, if I ever fix my USMLE issues, you can bet my pitstop there will be temporary. If not, well, it is what it is.
Christ. What does it take for the US healthcare industry to be considered greener pastures?
I guess
close air supportbags of money really do cover a multitude of sins.Every time I tell someone I am part of the Veterans Affairs health care system in the United States, I use the joke "I protected you from socialized health care, so now I get...socialized health care."
It has never failed to get a laugh.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link