Yet Another Loss

When I first received the text from a specialist in my old hospital, my heart caught in my chest. Yesterday, the medical fraternity lost another doctor to the clutches of fatigue, in a scenario that is unfortunately all too common for us in this field. 

Dr Afifah was a medical officer in my old hospital, and her story strikes too close to home. I cannot imagine what her family and loved ones are going through, and can only pray that they find the strength to pull through these difficult times. 

We've all been there. 

We've all known someone who has fallen asleep for a microsecond at a point when we were too tired during our jobs; from the harmless swerve of the steering wheel, to the more sinister material or physical losses. 

 We've all made jokes about how tired we were, complained about how little sleep we've had, told our little anecdotes about how we've fallen asleep on patients - as if it's become something so absolutely normal in the course of our daily lives, almost like a badge of honour in our job as doctors. 

Perhaps we were luckier than our other colleagues who did not do as well. The concern among senior doctors is the prevalent belief that your skill is equivalent to the amount of hours worked. That by getting rid of the oncall system we'll produce less efficient doctors, that the health of our patients will be compromised. 

There are too many things to be taken into consideration, many sides to the tale, but as a medical fraternity, it is important to sit down objectively and figure out a system that will strike that balance between medical competency and the wellbeing of us doctors. 

Truth be told, that could have been me. 

It could have been any one of us.

Boundaries

A young girl walked into the clinic emergency entrance, shaking and bleeding from several abrasion wounds. I attended to her immediately, and she told me she had been involved in a motorcycle accident - a car had hit her from behind but thankfully she hadn't sustained any major injuries.

She was in a shocked state when she first came, scared and shaking and kept repeating how fearful she was at telling her mother - from the way she spoke it sounded like her mother was a real fire dragon. It turned out that she had lied to her mother about where she was going and had taken out the family motorcycle to meet friends in town.

“Take a deep breath, and focus first – there’s no point worrying about it. For the moment you’re well and that’s the most important thing,” I told her. 

Her mother finally arrived and I smiled as I let her into the clinic emergency section. Her daughter ran to her and I was about to smile, but it shocked me when she opened her mouth to speak to her mother – with disrespect, almost to the point of screaming at her mum. She really kept mouthing off, even accusing her mother of scolding her despite her being hurt. Her mother hadn’t even really scolded her at this point – it felt like her mother herself was shaking at the thought that her daughter might have been involved in a serious accident. 

I don’t know where the boundaries of respect were blurred between mother and child, but to me it is shocking to see a child mouth back at her mother so blatantly. While the child herself was definitely slightly traumatized by the accident, it was also obvious that she was trying to run away from her fault and shift the focus of the blame unto anything other than herself. 

I can only hope I've never treated my own mother like that or that any future child I have will ever speak to me that way.