August.
The month of changeovers.
Source: ABC
For many Junior Doctors in the United Kingdom, August is a month of mixed emotions. It marks the end of a rotation you’ve probably come to love and enjoy, and the beginning of a much anticipated new one. Through all these changes, it’s the emotions that bother me the most.
Of course, change is inevitable. But many of these changes come at a cost. Or shall we say COSTS!
The least talked about is the cost of losing friends and leaving behind people you have come to form strong bonds with. The colleagues and the banters, the lovely staff members you’ve worked with and the hospital itself where you’ve probably become a Don.
Now you’re expected to lose all that street credibility and start all over again. The anxiety that comes with this is worrisome, and one may describe it as “demolishing to rebuild”. As anyone familiar with construction will know, reconstruction produces rubbles.
The ever so familiar questions pop again and again as August starts. “What are you moving on to” “What next” “What have you got lined up“… the list is endless.
For some, it’s the specific taste of coffee at that hospital’s Costa shop they’d miss. Or the conversations in the doctors mess. For some, it’s the trouble of relocation that has kept them awake in the last few weeks. Sorting out accommodation close to their new hospital.
Whichever the case, as you resume your new post on Black Wednesday, remember, it only gets better (or maybe that’s just what we say to make ourselves feel good). Form new bonds, keep in touch with old friends, plan hangouts and don’t let the job take too much from you.
From a Doctor who isn’t rotating this August
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