stupid doctors

the reason why this blog was started in the first place... a place for me to vent my anger on the stupid doctors that work in the hospital i'm currently in... not that this will only be about them, now THAT will be sad...

ok, before i even start anything... i juz want to say that generally, not all doctors are stupid... i mean, i have friends that are doctors, alot of them actually, but it's just that the ones that i often get in contact with just comes up with the dumbest questions to answers that you'll expect them to already know... so you can't really blame me for thinking this way...

anyway, back to the main topic...

last sunday night i was on night shift (sunday 8pm - monday 8am), and we were so busy trying to process our specimens... can u imagine, 30++ screaming kids in the A&E, which means more than 30 specimens coming continuously to the lab, not to mention the inpatient specimens... and we only have 1 person manning each section (haematology, biochemistry, bloodbank) at night... by the time we eventually had time for a break, it was already 1.30-2am...
like most times, we all went for our break together... i think we hadn't sat down in the pantry for more than 5min before the phone started ringing... AGAIN!! aarrhhh!!! the frustration...
(it's bad enough we had to walk from place to place registering specimens, processing specimens, verifying the results, we still had to answer phone calls from the wards.)
so anyway, we just let the phone ring (big mistake!), expecting whoever was on the other line to call back later... but the phone just kept ringing and ringing, nonstop...

eventually, i was the one who went to answer the phone call and what did i get? a crappy doctor who very angrily said that he had been calling for the past 10min and demanded why nobody was picking up his call... i apologized and said (very honestly) that i was having my break... he, not very nicely, asked me for this patient's results, which after i checked on the computer, has already been verified some 10-15min earlier, but he kept insisting that it wasn't in the system... then he asked for my name and hung up on me... HUNG UP ON ME!!!!

i was really pissed off after that phone call with him... first off... ok, it was partially our fault for not picking up the phone, but do you really have to call like continuously for 10min?? or so he said... can't you just call back later...
i mean, whenever we have to inform critical results to the wards or clinics, sometimes, we can't even get through to the line, and if we do, we could be ringing for the same amount of time... but we would just wait awhile, and try to call back later... and when we get through, we don't immediately shout at whoever might be on the other line, saying "why is NOBODY picking up the phone, i've been calling for XXXmin, are you trying to affect my turnaround time!!"

what got me especially pissed was his tone of voice... it was like implying, 'should YOU be having a break now when i'm urgently requiring a result that i obviously can trace from the computer system?!'

and can i state that we're not your computer operators... shouldn't you check the system for your patient's results before trying to call us... don't waste our time, and your time by doing useless things like calling us for every other tests that you're just too lazy to check from the computer... the nurses, i can understand... for some reasons, they don't seem to have access to the computer system which makes it difficult to trace results... if the results aren't there and you can't get us, just wait 5min for the system to update itself, then try tracing the results again...

and give us some time at night will you... we're already trying to frantically produce the results for you with the same amount of time as during the day where there are 4-5 people working together, but with only 1 person now...

all in all, while you may have your difficulties as doctors, we also have our own troubles as lab technicians too... don't just make life miserable for others just because you might be having a sucky day, or night...

*deep breathes*