As I've said before, it's St. Patrick's Day today!! Am supposed to be in green & drinking Guiness, but since I'm on leave today, I'm still wearing the pajama that I slept with last night and because nobody in my house drinks Guiness, I have opted for Anglia Shandy. Kaka.. Pembelot betul!! :p
Speaking of on leave, I took time-off for both yesterday & today actually. Was on-call & working the entire week last week. From 2p.m. to 11p.m. on weekdays and 4p.m. to 12a.m. on weekend. Plus presenting on clinical cases & handing in clinical case reports on Wednesday. Was exhausted dy by the end of the week. Actually not THAT tired lah, just that I really need some time to prepare for the upcoming forensic exam, which I happily spent most on sleeping & stoning... T_T Just finished buffering "Twilight" on Tudou. Shit, I really should refrain myself from hitting the "play" button and go study instead. Stop me, pls!!
Anyways, it was my first time doing the A&E and locum shift. Pretty late to start with, I know. Haha.. Was just transferred to OPD late February ma. That's why I got the privilage. Kaka.. Well, it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be loh. Let me summarise my disastrous experience below for ur enjoyment.
Day 1Happily woke up at around 8:30a.m. It's a public holiday so my working time was from 4p.m. till 12a.m. Was preparing for breakfast when I received a call from S, who had been working from 12a.m. the night before. He was supposed to pass over to A at 8a.m., but A didn't turn out or pick up the phone when he called. He asked if I could replace A. Others either didn't pick up his phone or were not around. I knew he was very tired dy and wanted to help,but my situation didn't allow lah. See, if I replace A, who's gonna replace me later on at night? That means I would have to work from 9a.m. straight till 12a.m. at night!! Crazy.. I felt really bad to reject him though. So I compromised and agreed to replace A from 12p.m. onwards. So he & I would both work for 12 hours each loh. Fair enough ma..
Luckily A called back about half an hour later and rushed to work immediately. She didn't know she was the one working in the morning.
I took over at 4p.m. Now that the locum clinic has got famous, there were so many patients! Non-stop.. Needless to say, lotsa syrup reconstitution & compounding loh. En. R went for dinner at around 745p.m leaving me alone at the counter, at which point patients started flooding in (I really don't understand why the crowd always appears when the fabulous dispenser is away lor, grrrrr). Damn kelam-kabut hunting around for drugs, making syrup, calling Drs up when they accidentally prescribed List A item or wrong frequency. As I've said, it was my first night ma.
Then suddenly I received a call from the surgical ward, asking me the correct method to dilute & infuse Sandostatin!!! Gosh, I swear I didn't even know wth Sandostatin was! At first, I even thought they were asking about Simvastatin, which made me stupidly asked, "Huh? Simvastatin can be diluted & infused one meh?" XP The best thing was, Sandostatin & the greatest publication of all time - Drug Info were upstair in the satelite pharmacy while I was downstair alone. Told them I'd call back later when I got the answer. The phone rang immediately just when I put it down. Medical ward wanna indent for DD. Fine. Then my handphone rang. FRP called to ask me to countercheck & distribute the chemo drugs that just got freshly delivered back from Muar.
OH MY GOSH!! I wish I was an octopus!! Honestly, was freaking scared lor. I've never handled chemo drugs before. Later got spillage how lah? Would I kena cancer? Damn kiasi loh!! Then that smart surgical ward somemore kept calling to ask if their Sandostatin answer was ready. Grrrrrrrrrrrr...
All those were in my mind but I couldn't leave the busy counter. Scare the already frustrated why-the-pharmacist-kept-chatting-on-the-phone-but-not-dispensing patients would go into a riot. But also worried if I neglect the reconstituted chemo drugs for too long it would start to degenerate. How lah how lah? Then my handphone rang again. Was really annoyed and went like "HELLO?!!" only to find out that it was from the harmless Lee Yin. Think I scared her liao. Haha... Sorry, Lee Yin!!! XP
Luckily my saviour En. R got back later on so I was able to rush to the Satelite upstairs & got everything settled. Phew... =)
Note: Pls don't wait till ur DD stock turns zero then only start calling up the pharmacist on-call. Check ur stock & indent during office hours lah. And Drs, pls don't expect the pharmacist to give answer immediately especially when u ask for something that u're supposed to know better than us. We are very busy as well de, alright?
Day 2Patients from the clinics couldn't be cleared till after office hours. And Drs from the wards happily discarged their patients after 5p.m. Again, it was a crazy day. At night somemore got a teenage girl who came over to request for "ubat untuk kuruskan badan". Erm... I didn't know if I should laugh or cry... (-__-")
Day 3Dr. X called to ask for advice. Answered. Then received a problematic Rx from Dr. X about 10secs later. Called Dr. X, who said he would confirm & call back, which he did but only to tell me that he didn't recall handling that patient. So he promised to double-check & call back again. When I was fighting with the stubborn Ampicillin that got stuck to the bottle, he called & said "I'm Dr. XYZ, OK?! Dr XYZ" & hung up before I could say anything. I was like "What?" then I saw the stamp on the Rx being Dr. XWV and I realized what went wrong. Hello? How'd I know if u're XYZ not XWV lah? I asked for Dr. X and they put u on the phone ma. Pls remember to stamp ur Rx properly with "Locum" or "A&E" next time so that I know which Dr. X I'm talking to lah...
Day 4The son of a SPUB patient from HSA came to ask for Nimotop at around 10p.m.. Told him I was not supposed to dispense ubat susulan at that hour but he insisted that his dad had finished all the supply already & asked me to tolong cause his dad had to take Nimotop every 4 hourly. Kak A went sembahyang already. Honestly, I had no idea wth Nimotop was but I agreed to try & help. Found out from MIMS that it was Nimodipine actually. I searched up & down for it but couldn't find. The patient waited for almost half an hour already so in the end I had to kacau Kak. A who was praying. So paisay!! Luckily she was done already.. XP
Kak A told me we memang never have any Nimotop before. She didn't understand why patient had a SPUB letter referring to our hosp. When checked, only we found out that HSA merely supplied Nimotop for a day and then SPUB the patient to us liao. Think we hadn't even received the fax, not to mention having time to order for the drug loh. In the end had to apologize to the patient's son and told him to go back to HSA for the remaining supply after he had waited for so long. Felt very sorry towards him lah.. Aiks... (>.<")
Which of u in HSA did that har? Nyek hehe.. Day 5Surgical ward called again. This time to ask for the infusion method of Polymicin B for a MRSA infected patient. Said they couldn't understand the instruction given by the pharmacist who supplied them with the drug earlier on. Sigh, why always called after office hour lah? So I quickly called up my FRP. He told me he had already supplied the product information leaflet together with the drug and even highlighted the instruction to follow. Both of us didn't understand why they couldn't read. Ish. So, after much explanation, the problem was finally solved.
Day 6Dr asked for Syp. Maxolon 5mg TDS. En. R was away for dinner. Patients were again flooding in. I had never made a Maxolon syrup before. I never knew that Maxolon tablet could be so hard!! When I tried to crush the tablets in the mortar by force, 2 of them "flew" out!! So malu!! Luckily I was doing that behind a shelf. If not I'd have become the greatest entertainment for all the awaiting patients liao. Damn geram with the Maxolon tablets lor. Somemore the patient's mum kept asking "Hao liao ma? Hao liao ma?". Grrrrrr...
In the end, I gave up. Called up the Dr. and asked if he could change the anti-emetic to the ready-made Syp. Phenergan. Thank Goodness he agreed. Saved me breath to susah-payah explain to the patient's mum that making syrup DOES take time.. (-__-")
Quickly consulted En. R for the correct way to make a Maxolon syrup when he got back. En. R did it so elegantly without much effort loh. Ish... T_T
Day 7Last day!! Thought I would survive through without much hassel. Mana tau the pharmacist from Hosp. Z called at peak hour. Wanna borrow 6 vials of Drug A. Emergency case. Told her I have to consult my Boss first. So she gave me her hp number & asked to call back. I shun bian asked for the Hosp. number as well.
Boss asked me to check on the stock in Satelite first. Told him I was alone cause Mr. Z went to help out at the gotong-royong liao. So he sent someone else to check & gave me the green light. So I called to the pharmacist's hp number which she didn't pick up!! Called again, still the same. Called again, up to no good. Grrrrr... What for giving me ur hp number when u're not even going to pick it up lah? Luckily I got the Hosp. number as well. So I called and she picked up. Grrrrrrrrrr....
Told her we could lend her 6 vials of Drug A, but then she said "My Boss said, can borrow 10 vials instead ah?" Grrrrrrrr!! Should have told me earlier what!! So I said I have to confirm with my Boss again. She said "Har? Have to confirm ah? Ok Ok..." DUH??!!! So I called up Boss & he considered & granted permission to lend. So, I called back to tell the pharmacist the good news, to which she said, "Oh ya, can we borrow 10 vials of Drug B as well?"
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! Why can't u tell me everything at one go lah? Think I very free meh? Patients already wanted to kill me for putting their Rx aside way too long than I should have lor. So I called up Boss again (whom I think wanted to kill me as well for kacau-ing him way too much on a Sunday night) who asked me to check on my own this time since Mr. Z was on his way back already. Then I requested Mr. Z to check for me and called back to Boss again for instruction. Boss agreed to lend. So I called back to the pharmacist from Hosp. Z. Luckily this time she didn't ask if she could borrow 10 vials of Drug C. If not, I think I would go berserk and stomp on the phone in front of all the patients liao..
She directed the indent form to me, which when I received, found that she got my name wrongly spelled somemore... (-_____________-")
That's all about my first on-call experience. Lazy to blog liao. Been spending way too much time blogging dy. DDA!!! POISON ACT!!!!! Oh my Gosh!! XP
