Exclusive give away- 5 copies of Dr Yumiko Kadota‘s Emotional Female

Hi all-

I am running an exclusive competition for 5 free copies of Dr Yumiko Kadota‘s best selling new memoir, Emotional Female

To win, in 50 words or less describe how you would change medicine to be more accessible to women and other marginalised groups?

To enter- comment below or send an email to drsarehuman1@gmail.com

Entries close next Monday 12th April.

This competition is exclusive to Doctors Are Human and so, you can share with your friends but ask them to follow this facebook page or the wordpress blog (link in comments) and to show proof! I will be checking

You are never alone

Surrounded by my colleagues at ANZAN, I immediately felt overwhelmed. Look at all of these doctors, young and old, chatting cheerfully, laughing and acting like Neurology is the passion of their life. Tired, burnt out and struggling to imagine myself as a neurologist, or as anything really, and following an election that left me gutted, I couldn’t bring myself up to chatting with influential Professors with my “good behaviour” on.

We all put on a facade at work, which we think others want to see. A facade of energy, enthusiasm and competence. For some this comes naturally, for others sometimes or always, this is an immense struggle. Paradoxically, this facade makes it harder for doctors, who struggle, to seek help. Conversations around mental illness and burn out occurred despite the underlying culture of fear that admitting to these struggles would be used against you. We put up with bullying and at times, inhumane conditions for a career. How hard it must be for those of us who work this hard for so long, then turn around and walk away?

Talking to friends away from the bright lights of sponsorship stalls showed me that many of us struggle silently. Many of my friends admit burn out. Others had periods in their career where they considered quitting and becoming something else altogether! An anthropologist! A model! An artist! The statistics show that this is common. The growth of sites like Creative Careers in Medicine, show that there are many of us who leave the well trodden path. We are discouraged from taking gap years, yet more and more of us take them and I haven’t yet heard someone come back regretting it. (Of course, many of us have responsibilities and cannot do this).

If you feel alone, please reach out.

Find a friend away from the bright lights and sycophancy. Sometimes official supervisors are less than helpful. If so, find someone you relate to. If the rise of unwieldy facebook groups has taught me anything, it is that there are such a wide variety of doctors and people out there.

In the words of Florence Welch, in trying times, we must “hold onto each other”.

A year in the life (of Groany Jones) – “I read the news today. Oh Boy.” #registrarlyf #dailyexperience

2017 begun in Cambodia, awaiting an ultimately disappointing sunrise at 04:30am outside Ankhor Wat. The year of the rooster: bad luck and mishap were in store for me, my family, my lovers (or lack of), my career… apologies in retrospect to any 4th to 10th cousins who suffered mishap this year. To ward away bad celestial omens I obtained a blessing from a monk in the Ankhor Wat carpark and the orange and yellow bracelet still hangs over my bed. So was my year a giant pile of dung or can I see positives, despite Trump, Dutton, government sanctioned refugee torture and a marriage equality survey etc?

Prior to spending the first 2 days of the Christmas long weekend napping, I would have said – the horoscopes are true! Grumble, grumble, trudging with heavy feet. I was so burnt out. My bad attitude stunk. I held off writing, since I didn’t want to air my toxicity. Would that be useful for anyone? At the same time, if I wrote from a cruise boat on the Caribbean I would have scoffed burn out, neverrrr. I am invincible! Internship, breezed through. BPT, scoffs, cinch. From a happy medium, I admit my year has been full of work. I saw my parents twice. I have seen my good friends about once each. Also, what love life? A disastrous somewhat expensive matched speed dating trial?!

When I reflect, I can see why I am exhausted. I wrote 40 presentations in ten months. I worked with a team of workaholic consultants, who tended to ward round late, at times past 8pm. (Once my consultant rounded till 11:30pm, but I made an excuse and left hours earlier). Meetings were after hours, so even on a good week I would leave between 1-2 hours late 2 days per week. I did not claim overtime. As an advanced trainee I would have to claim directly from my head of department and supervisor, who would DEFINITELY remember me and how much I cost the department. A silly roster meant that between the five of us, if we all took our ados and covered for the Fridays when BPTs transitioned from 4 week days to a week of nights (then only had two days off before restarting days #wtf), we would be short staffed between 1-2 days per week. Add in the usual difficult work dynamics: a consultant who is chronically unhappy with you, several devastating cases, mistakes and sharp learning curves (we treated a patient as psychogenic who had a huge frontal meningioma. She nearly died!) and dreadful patient interactions (a patient with pseudoseizures who said, I must refrain from talking about her seizures, as I was ONLY a trainee). In summary I am exhausted and I comfort ate myself 6kg fatter.

Yet, I started a website with some friends, with at least middling success (next year we shall gain more followers and get more submissions from you folk, I am certain!). I participated in a minor way in the NSW health JMO wellbeing forum and, whilst institutions change as fast as a rock erodes, things seem hopeful. I discovered Roxane Gay and Discworld, Terry Pratchett- so hilarious! Gods smashing atheist windows. A disc world held up by a giant turtle and elephants! I ran the city to surf. I saw SIA. Many colleagues, especially surgeons and those working and prepping for exams have had a worse 2017. AND NOW we are working together to make medicine better for us all! Here is a meme and a handy picture of nutella, as a random sample of my 2017 experience. Let’s hope the horoscopes are in my favor for 2018. The year of the dog… well dogs are nice?