Evenin’. Right, where to start with today? Well, I guess if the Beginning is good enough for a mad hatter its good enough for me. This morning we had clinic at a sister hospital. A hospital that, on a map and from my vague recollection of London geography, was about a 20minute walk away. Turns out it’s a 40 minute march away. I had arranged to meet Friend at 9 am and just about made it there by ten past. Phew. We located clinic and were there happily by the designated start time of 9.30am. We then spent a delightful hour and a half waiting for Mr Consultant. Luckily the Reg and SHO had been there since 9.30 and had been seeing patients, so don’t fear NHS customers. It gave me the chance to do an impromptu sketch of Friend, which I may upload at somepoint. Good practice drawing profiles. That’s boring and of little consequence. But it is something I did today.
Clinic saw a swathe of beloved patients and even a hug for Mr Consultant from a young girl who had had various facial surgeries. I was then quizzed about the national religion of Armenia in a roundabout way of being schooled on the history of plastic surgery in America. Apparently all the big bosses are descendants of Armenians who fled Turkish persecution. I learnt something today. Woop.
Lunch was an MDT but first Mr Consultant insisted that we try out a local sandwich shop. He was bang on the money- Halloumi and veg sarnie. Delish. But that four quid was this week’s budget... Anyway. After the MDT we then went to another clinic on a different floor to the first clinic, and saw patients until around 6pm. The way patients are seen is also a bit alien to me. Basically the most senior person starts to see someone and then in the middle of consultations goes around and sees everyone else and their patients. At first glance it all seems a bit rude, but the patients are patient or politely befuddled, just happy to be seen. After watching this approach to clinic for a couple of days the idea seems to have sunk in, that its evolved as the most efficient way of seeing the hundreds of patients who need the department.
But enough of all of this NHS related talk. Today was productive in several ways. I have discovered the key to talking to Mr Consultant. First you must understand that at any point in the conversation he could be interrupted by his phone which 50% of the time gets answered. Secondly, he may interject with ideas before your idea has fully come out of your mouth. Thirdly, he may be stolen by anyone else at any time. Thus, I have developed a means of communication whereby I think about what I want to say, form the idea coherently and put it into one sentence. I then wait, poised, with my sentence. Ready to pounce. When he appears to have finished a conversation- Strike! It has worked so far. Mr Consultant reminds me of me in the future. So busy and full of ideas that holding anything down can be a bit tricky. I hope people talk to me in the future with well thought out punchy statements. Possibly with hand actions. Or interpretive dance.
After escaping clinic and finally letting Mr Consultant leave (after inadvertently walking him to his car) at 7pm, on my way back to the entrance (I had no idea where I had walked to) I ran into the rest of the Team. Reg and two SHOs, one of whom is Old Girl. They accepted the challenge of showing me how to get out of the hospital and on the way I got invited to join them for some dinner. I declined dinner (zero cash) but said I’d come for a drink (sneaky tap water perhaps). On chatting to the other SHO it turns out he is originally from Nottingham and we had a good old chinwag about getting burgled in Radford. Homies! They’re just crawling out of the walls! Anyway, Reg took us to a rather swanky bar full of financial looking types. On admitting that this was possibly the most up market place I’d ever been in my life, Reg insisted that most of them were just wannabes. The City is a strange place. Reg kindly treated us to a bottle of wine, explained that if I wanted to come and see anything in particular just to ask him and then I politely made an exit. Yay! One of the Team!
I’m going to keep the rest of this short as it’s already 11pm and theatre all day tomorrow with Mr C. It’s set to be a whole bunch of interesting stuff. I treated myself to a bus home, via mini supermarket. Reduced cooked chicken equals tomorrows chicken and avocado sarnies (competed and in fridge) and a room that smells of chicken as for some reason I insisted on doing much of the preparation in my room. As per my nightly task, one more self-portrait done. Tonight’s was in biro and this time I tried to smile.
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