I’m sure you are all ecstatic to see the virtual return of everyone’s favourite peeved doctor from their unexpected six week international hiatus (think catastrophic family crisis). 

My return to the NHS has been not without some rose tinted glasses (yes I’m surprised too), not least driven by the incredible strides which are being made in the Covid vaccination programme, and how huge a difference this is starting to make. 

There are some things though, which remain a deep seated source of quiet mirth, and one of these is the introduction of drop off points for relatives to bring essential items and possessions to their poorly family members while visiting remains off limits due to Covid. In and of itself, this is a great idea- it stops a large amount of foot traffic in the hospital, reducing the risk of passing on disease, while making sure that patients still have access to the home comforts that will make their stay a little bit more pleasant. 

Now where the joy arises is that these personal possessions are lovingly hand delivered around the hospital by a team of volunteers using a fleet of repurposed Tesco trolleys. There has been absolutely zero effort made to hide the fact that these trolleys have in fact had a previous full life, and in fact they still bear the proud branding of their former owner. The trolleys also seem to have all miraculously appeared from Tesco- no other British supermarket has been targeted in quite the same fastidious way, giving rise to the all important question of whether Tesco trolleys are in fact just generally superior, or whether the person who supplies the hospital with them lives close to an untapped supply (aka Big Tesco). 

In an additional glorious nod to their former heritage, the trolleys are all officially named Dolly the Trolley. We know this because someone has painstakingly stuck a laminated bit of A4 paper to the front of every single one, declaring its new moniker. 

The other magnificent part of this service is the banned items list. The fact that a banned items list even exists in the first place is in itself joyous, but the absolute icing on the cake is that every now and again a little handwritten addendum gets added to the bottom of the list, one can only assume because someone has made a valiant effort to bring it to their loved one who is languishing in hospital. Personal favourites so far have been nunchucks, illegal drugs and machetes. 

The fact that this needs to be spelt out to members of the general public never fails to brighten my day.

For those of you who inhabit the normal world (aka are sensible enough to not be doctors), let me explain the significance of the first Wednesday in December. This marks the great migration: the day when doctors all change jobs. It’s not quite as dramatic as the first Wednesday in August (affectionately known as Black Wednesday), but it nevertheless involves a fairly great deal of shifting about and upheaval.

Moving to a new job is pretty much what it says on the tin. New colleagues, new department, sometimes even new hospital. It also inevitably involves a new rota, and getting to grips with the quirks of your new rota coordinator, just when you’d finally come to accept how infuriating your current one is.

And this dear reader, is where we take a slight political detour. I am staunchly against the Conservative party. I have never and will never support them. So it pains me greatly that the incumbent leader of the nation is none other than Boris Johnson, very firmly of the tory party.

BoJo is infamous for his incredible indecision, and constant parliamentary U-turns with all major decisions. This has included, but is not limited to, Brexit, lockdown, and pretty much any kind of social funding. And yet, despite his abysmal record for being able to make literally any kind of weighty decision, he has actually managed to confirm what the national lockdown guidance will be over Christmas, a full month in advance.

So why do I mention this? Well it turns out that I’ve found someone who rivals BoJo’s inability to make concrete plans. And this person is the rota coordinator for my next job. I am as astounded as anyone that we have somehow managed to get national guidelines for Christmas from the master of procrastination himself BEFORE the coordinator has published the December rota.

Since my job starts in 5 days with absolutely no sign yet of the rota arriving anytime soon, I’ve resorted to a semi-apocalyptic mindset, whereby I simply do not make any plans whatsoever from the 2nd December, and just pray I don’t start on nights. Scheduling just sort of… ends.. on the 1st, and after that lies a black hole, which I’m hoping someone might be kind enough to shed some light on. Ideally before the day I start.

Picture the scene: It’s a Wednesday morning. My week thus far can probably best be described as acceptably mediocre. I don’t think I can ever quite be called bright eyed or bushy tailed in the morning, but this morning at least I’ve tried to give myself a mini pep talk to convince myself that today is not just going to be mediocre. No. Today we strive for okay.

Immediately on entering the ward I’m made aware that there are two separate ambulance crews hovering in the corridor, both unable to take their patients home because I have not yet finished the discharge paperwork thanks to being deluged the day before.

Mildly stressed, I assure the nurse that the situation is in hand, and that this won’t take me more than 5 minutes to complete. I realise my mistake very very quickly when it turns out that all of the IT software has taken this precise moment to just.. stop working. And I mean cease working entirely. All of it.

And at this point the fire alarm goes off. This adds a wonderfully appropriate background siren to my rapidly building stress level. It’s apparently not actually for a fire (who am I to know), but for reasons unbeknownst to man the powers that be can’t find anyone who actually knows how to turn it off.

And so begins my day: the better part of the local ambulance service queuing in my ward, with no functioning computers and a fire alarm that no one can switch off.

Oh, and the pods are down.

Hello there readers on the inter web. After some gentle prodding to do so, I’ve finally hit the point of insanity which makes you go “oh what the hell I’ll start a blog”. If nothing else, at least it’s something to do while the country goes into meltdown yet again. 

So who am I? I’m an NHS junior doctor (probably the most important qualification I have to write this), but I’ve also long been left bemused by many of the idiosyncrasies which make up day to day life in NHS hospitals. I’ve seen them from afar as a student, and really up close and personal as a fully fledged physician, and they seem to grow more infuriatingly bizarre the closer you get. 

Despite every effort the system makes to thwart reason, I’m also still proud of the care that gets provided day in, day out, to people who need it. 

And of course, all views are my own.