Ate Resident's Tips to Junior Interns: Take Care of Yourself

I read it somewhere that we doctors are abused in our work.  I thought during that time that it was kind of an exaggeration and didn't believe it.  Whenever did you hear that doctors are abused? They're rich anyways, they have their parents to back them up on their very big tuition fee, they don't have anything to worry with their food, their family can afford it. These are the things that people see, so they disregard the overtime work, your dedication and post anything harsh and cyberbullying comes in.

We doctors tend to forget our own selves in our profession.  It may be because we feel guilty because we can see our patients who feel worse than our simple flu, our simple diarrhea and we tend to continue on working as doctors, you just need to place and iv line and continue your work. You can see doctors with IV lines connected to them and they're still tending to patients, they're still making their rounds. This is our job.  We can't afford to be sick, there are more patients that need our help.  

So you just continue and continue to go on.  You work 30 hrs or more when you're on duty.  30 hrs really? that's more than a day.  Well yeah, can you imagine? You come in at 7am, but you go home 5pm the next day.  That's like more than 24 hrs isn't it?  Whoever told you that 24 hr duty exists????  Don't be fooled like the common people... we don't work for 24 hrs on duty? We work for 30 hrs at on duty.  And we don't get any overtime pay, because we're not employees... We're trainees right? There's no law to protect us of being overworked.  

So we go on and on... We're young, our bodies can take it...

And then we fall...

I think my introduction is a mess here. Hahaha, well I can't help it, currently I'm sick, I can't really organise my thoughts like before.  As a currently sick resident, here's my tips not to only junior interns but to senior interns and residents as well.

Always remember to take care of yourself. And how do you do that?

1. Buy your own protective gear

Yeah, you heard me, buy your own.  If you're tending to a TB patient, buy your own N95 mask.  No complaints, just do it.  I know it's unfair to use your money to buy the protective gears, but that's life, you either protect yourself or get yourself some TB as well.  Either way, you'll pay for your own medications.  If you get TB from your patients, it's not the hospital nor the patient who will pay for your medications, it's still you, or your family.  

Have a pair of gloves always at your pocket.  You'll never know when you'll be handling something gross or contagious.  You choose... buy a pair of P5 gloves? or buy thousand pesos medications kung nahawa ka na sa kung anong meron run pasyente?

2. Wash your hands before and after handling a patient.

You don't want to pass a contagious disease to you nor to your other patients.  So always take note of your hand washing.

3. Be careful

How many times have we been accidentally pricked by needles from our patients?  If you get pricked from a needle from a patient who has  hepatitis B or HIV.  We're on our own in buying our own antivirals anyways.  The hospital nor the patient won't buy the medicines for you.  They don't have money to buy their own medicines na nga e, what more to buy your medicines.

4. Take a rest

It looks heroic to see pictures of doctors making rounds with IV lines with them.  You get millions of positive comments and likes.  But what if your body just gave up one day.  You fall down, your millions of positive comments and likes won't be there to help you.  You and your family are on your own to pay your hospital bill, your medications, etc.  Your patients will not be there to help you, you will not get discounts from the hospital bill.  Because there's no budget for it.  Kasalanan mo yan, bakit ka pa pumasok e may sakit ka na nga?

5. Give yourself a break

We tend to forget on how to give ourselves time to relax, because we worry about our patients, our conferences, our research papers... We just don't have the time to relax.  When you feel so stressed out, do you think your patients will be there for you? No.  They're busy with their own diseases already. Go have a massage, go to karaoke with friends or families, go to malls and have shopping therapy.  You deserve some quality time outside the hospital.

6. Don't skip your meals

We can't give our 100% to a patient if our stomach's grumbling.  And we don't want a doctor to fall down due to weakness from hypoglycaemia.

7. Take care of your family relationships

We doctors tend to forget our own families.  We can't go home to our own mother's or father's birthday celebration because we're on duty, because we have to study for a conference, because we have papers to finish. Patients always come first. We spend how many freaking hours inside the hospital working our ass off.  And when we fall, when our bodies fall, it's only our family who will be there with you when you're admitted, it's only our family who will be there to pay for your hospital expenses, it's only our family who will be there for moral support. So treasure your relationship with your families.

As a sick resident, from the bottom of my heart, I can say that Health is Wealth. Because when the doctor is the one who gets sick, then we'll have one minus person who can help our patients.  And mind you, not any person can do our job, so just take care of yourself.