The Intern Experience

Scarily enough, I have now been practicing medicine for 2 months. In the last 8 weeks, I've experienced things that ordinary human beings never even dream of. Things that aren't glamorous enough to show on ER, either.

See, I'll let you in on a little secret: TV doctors don't act like real doctors. Especially TV interns. On all the medical shows on TV, junior doctors are in there saving lives and making very difficult decisions on their own. Bollocks. When a patient "codes" (ie, looks really sick and about to die), interns try their hardest to be the last ones there. I mean, it's part of our job to be there, but if we're the first doctor on the scene, then we have to run the show and what minimal knowledge we have disappears as panic takes over. We don't confidently run in there and bark out orders for adrenaline or frusemide or whatever drug is needed, we wait for the senior doctors to tell the nurses which drugs they want administered through the needle we are trying desperately to get in.

I think the biggest decisions regarding drug choices I make are regarding pain relief. Oh, and aperients, aka, drugs that make you poo.

And speaking of poo, I was initiated into the one intern experience that will NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS be shown on prime time viewing. The hallowed practice of digital disimpaction. Also known as manual disimpaction. Doctors and nurses everywhere are now shuddering at those words and are sending "you poor thing" vibes across to me. For everyone else, digital disimpaction is the process of emptying a patient's rectum out with one's finger. You heard me, I had to scoop poo out of a patient's bum.

According to my registrar, it is an intern experience, a humiliating one, but one every doctor has to experience at least once in their life. I hope never to have to do it again.