Category: Weekly wonder post

You may have trouble remembering this, if you’re constantly working odd shifts and long hours. But there’s a whole big wide world outside the walls of your workplace. In recent weeks, I’ve made adventurous inroads (this is hyperbole) into new areas – the suburbs surrounding my hospital and various random spots in my city to which I’ve never before been. Do you know what is amazing about this? Cruising down unknown streets and new stretches of clogged-up Sydney traffic is actually very freeing when it’s an entirely new experience. And this exploration can serve as a metaphor for those of you who may feel trapped by your present work environment.

We started this little online space two years ago (two whole years ago!!) as a way to support our colleagues and peers in what can sometimes be an isolating career. We also wanted a space that could open minds to new ideas and remind people of there previously creative selves. So this post is dedicated to careers in medicine that are outside of your typical view.

Medical school tailored our learning to the main hospital specialties – physicians, surgery, obstetrics & gynaecology, paediatrics, psychiatry, emergency, intensive care, and anaesthetics – and general practice. Oddly enough, three specialties integral to hospital medicine were barely, if at all, covered: radiology, pathology, and medical administration. For the other AHPRA-recognised specialties – public health, occupational medicine, addiction medicine, palliative care, radiation oncology, sexual health, sports medicine – there was barely a look in.

Medical school also did not reveal to me the numerous “other paths” one could follow if none of those (quite varied) clinical specialties didn’t quite suit. A degree in medicine is not a one way ticket to clinical work; there is a multitude of alternatives. Entrepreneur, geneticist, pharmaceutical researcher, medico-legal advisor, educator, data scientist, medical photographer, and health journalist are all possibilities for which your degree prepares you. There are also plenty of ways to spread your wings while remaining in clinical practice – event volunteer doctor, overseas volunteer, military medicine, sports event assistant,  assistant to TV dramas … the list goes on.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with clinical medicine. I just remind you because I wonder if our colleagues and friends who have lost themselves along the way, and who we have lost, could remember that there is a life outside the hospital. There are other options. If being a physician registrar exhausts you, or even if being a consultant bores you, there are other alternatives. You have not signed away the rest of your life to this career. If you wish to be a cardiologist until the end of your days, wonderful! If you want to try your hand at all types of clinical medicine as a CMO, great! If you want to take a break to explore how environmental pathogens affect long-term health outcomes in regions around coal energy plants, excellent! There is always a career, and a life, out there for you.

If you could do anything, would this be the path you’d choose?

Maybe you are this curious kangaroo…

Today marks the last day of the first term of internship in NSW. Interns across the state have celebrated making it through their first experience of being a doctor – the thrill of getting in cannulas, making (successful) consults, difficult clinical reviews and the works. Well done! Whether it was hard or easy or somewhere in between, you’ve made this first milestone. Now on to the next challenge, the next learning opportunity and a new team.

For the registrars and consultants left behind, there will be a new set of fresh faces starting tomorrow. It’ll be adapting (again) to teaching the basics of your specialty, and, hopefully, being inspired by the eager enthusiasm of your new charges. May it be a great week.

To lead the charge, here are some thought provoking tid bits. This week’s suggested read is 21 Ideas for the 21st Century by the same author as Sapiens, a book presently on (seemingly) everyone’s reading list. This book has some confronting, but ultimately eye-opening, reflections on modern life.

For those of you frustrated by the more mundane underpayment often seen in our line of work, there’s good news. Efforts are being made across the board to reduce wage theft.

You’ve probably also heard of #IamHadiza and the issues surrounding her working conditions in the case of young Jack Adcock. Here’s a play-by-play of the days events. I’ve found it interesting that the blame has been variously apportioned to doctors, nurses and health system, while nobody seems to have reflected on the streptococcal bacteria that were the root cause of all of this. While the healthcare system stands as an army against illness, we do not win every battle.

In different life-threatening news, it turns out crocodiles don’t always want to eat you (but don’t take that as advice to invite yourself to their home).

For those of you into heart-stopping drama, here’s a guide to everyone who has died so far in Game of Thrones. Having never read the books or seen the show, the gravity of this is lost on me.

Five years late on the uptake (this article was written in 2014), apparently tuberculosis is not an ancient as we thought (and has rather interesting roots).

And to finish up for the week, here’s a picture from my weekend adventure.

We are one-quarter of the way through 2019. Listening to (my favourite) TED Radio Hour podcast recently, the featured talk was about time and how our perception of it changes as we age. A month is an eternity as a eight-year old (can you remember when school camp was A WHOLE MONTH AWAY and you didn’t know how you’d ever be able to wait?) but is barely the blink of an eye as an eighty-year old. And so it is surprising that it was a whole quarter-year ago that I dashed up to the top floor of the hospital, a few minutes late, friend in tow, to watch the fireworks over Sydney Harbour whilst on night shift. How has it been that long?

Unless we pause to reflect on what has changed and how we have grown, these milestones disappear like water under the bridge. Maybe make some time to reflect in the beautiful surrounds of nature.

But my, how things have changed. A London street has been painted with mind-boggling zebra stripes to protect pedestrians. Some very courageous researchers have discovered mushrooms may slow cognitive decline (more time to remember all these memories we are creating!).

Very excitingly, there is a compound that one very sensitive nose can smell that could be the key to early detection of Parkinson’s disease. One can only hope that new treatment methods will follow too.

If you’re more interested in delving into history, here’s a fascinating piece on how our favourite (life-affirming) beverage destroyed the Ottoman Empire (what a twist!).

And if you, like me, have a bent for infectious diseases, here’s a curious and frightening expose on a fungal infection I’d never heard of before.

And finally, for laughs, which seat do you pick on the plane?

Image source