You may have noticed my contribution to the world literature in medicine (for that read my Hospital Dr blog) has been a bit thin recently. Has he lost his angry edge, you might ask?
How could he let scandals such as the exposed useless performances of many ISTCs go without any comment? How can this failing rump of a government not be taken to task for their fiddling as their Roman Empire crumbles around them?
The honest answer is that I have experienced what happens to all of us in our consultant life at some time or another - a wave of clinical activity, on call pressure, demands for target delivery combined with keeping the admin going, the management areas focused and delivered, the teaching and presenting done.
This past three months have been some of the busiest I have ever experienced, even when I was regularly trudging between Bristol and London for BMA activities, while trying to hold down a full time job as an orthopaedic trainee, husband and father.
I coped with it, getting to the respite of an annual holiday with the missus minus ankle biters, thanks to the kindness and fortitude of the inlaws. An idyllic week on the beaches of the Caribbean always recharges the batteries and it could not come soon enough. Even my secretary commented that I seemed tired, stressed and was ‘acting a bit odd’ before I went.
As someone who lost a parent to severe depression in my formative years, that sort of thing scares me. I have always prided myself - as we often do - on my ability to absorb pressure and stress and just ‘keep going’. The final days before my holiday, I actually felt for the first time that I might find this difficult to cope with for a long sustained period.
So, while recuperating with the Antiguan fishes at 25 metres, I made a resolution - to reserve sometime for myself, my family and my non medical interests every day, even in some small way. To go out at lunchtime, take an hour to do some clothes shopping rather than give my wife my current (variable) waist measurement, simply be at school to meet the kids as they come out, then go back to work.
It worked. The first three weeks back from holiday felt better, even though the pressures are all there. I’ve got some nice new threads from Debenhams Sale. I’ve seen Up with my daughter and 5 other squeaky 8-year-olds. Our band even had a fun gig for a 30th birthday. But guess what? This week has slipped. They’ve pulled me back in. A few really difficult clinical cases, a busy on call or two, my annual appraisal, the spectre of 10 breaching patients for November, and the sudden announcement that we now have to shift to 10 week delivery (what planet do these people inhabit? Certainly not Planet Spinal Workload) have meant I’ve allowed the plan to slip.
So, next week, time to reaffirm, time to fight back for me, time to keep the lid on it and keep my sanity, so that my next booked holiday (with the kids in the Lakes this time) isn’t just a pressure valve that I am struggling to reach each time. My advice to all of you; never let them think that the targets, the pressures, the corporate NHS plc are more important than your necessary self-preservation. They won’t think about you until you are firmly in the occupational health sickness monitoring bin. Don’t let it happen.
