Thursday, January 4, 2007

A scary thought


Today I while at work I had a scary thought. I was talking to one of the nurses, and he told me that they "keep the good interns and registrars in the loop and the bad ones out of it" when it comes to many aspects of their treatment of the patients.

While this must make life difficult for the junior doctors who have been perceived and branded as "bad" and may not always be ideal for patient care, my thoughts after hearing it were a little more self-centred, and I wondered:

How do I avoid being one of the "bad" doctors and become one of the "good" ones?

Having been on-hand when it makes a hell of a difference, and being a person with high standards of work for myself, I really want to know whether there is an actual attitude, demeanour or set of skills that can make somebody "good" as opposed to "bad"?

Is it really fair to label somebody "good" or "bad"? They are all at work, and trying, although in every profession some people try harder than others.

Should I stop thinking about this and just try my hardest and know that it is the best that I could have done? I have been told that the enemy of good is better. I've seen things turn from a reasonable outcome to a very bad one because a doctor with high standards just kept trying. Sometimes things just go pear-shaped and it is just one of those things that happen, even with the best doctor imaginable.

The only answer I could think of is that I should simply try to do the best that I can, to remain a resonable human being, and to take each day as it comes. And make sure I don't get confused with the names of all of the drugs. They scare me, too.

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