My night

Some may know I am working at one of the NHS hospitals in Yorkshire. From this August, we need to work only 48 hours a week. Previously, it was over 50 hours a week. This post is about my last night experience.

My working time last night was from 20:30 hours to next morning 09:00.


18:30 hours I got up with headache after previous night on-call. Ibuprofen helped.
19:00 hours I did check my emails, Twitter and Gtalk if my sister and mayvelous online or not.
19:55 hours I left for my work place. I popped into a nearby shop to buy sandwich.

20:25 hours I arrived.

20:30 hours Hand-over meeting

21:00 hours I saw a 60 year old lady collapsed while trying to be seated at wedding ceremony. She had breast cancer spreading to liver. Her life span remained less than 1 year (perhaps less than 6 months). This would be her final celebration before her own funeral.

21:33 hours The bride of above weeding came in to see her friend. She was still on wedding gown cleaning hospital MRSA floor while walking at acute medicine department.

22:12 hours Two more patients came in. Both had breathlessness. One of them is my old patient. He is the regular visitor of our ward.

23:03 hours A girl with multiple over dose of medications. I leant that she did so after recently separated with her partner.

23:22 hours A beautiful girl came in. She was the partner of above patient.

00:12 hours Another overdose lady came in. (What’s wrong with England, many want to take their life).

00:30 hours I saw her. She has got multiple self inflicted cutting scar on the arms. Strong alcohol smell +. Nursing staff told me she is hepatitis C positive, very well know to them.

01:00 hour Take-away Pizza arrived. I ordered previously. Hospital provides foods only for the patients. One patient claimed that doctors had been having/stealing tea or coffee supposed to be their quota supplied by tax payer's money. In fact I am also a tax payer as they took nearly £1500 (nearly $3000) a month as a tax. Doctor and patient relationship has been in such a bad condition in some parts of UK.

01:11 hour The nurse bleeped me someone had constipated for 9 days, asking me to do something. She is just a bitch. Doing a bad practice?. Constipated for 9 days. Now they had a big bloody concern about constipation at mid night while I was seeing emergency patients. That is UK NHS.

02:20 hours I felt tired. So I had a cup of tea.

03:00 hours I saw 2 more new patients. One was the elderly came in with kidney failure after his long term catheter was no long working. Another was chest pain after taking alcohol and cocaine.

05:20 hours Someone vomiting all the time. She had lung cancer recently diagnosed. I found out that a big problem with her tummy ?inflammation going on. So I did refer to surgeons.

05:30 hours One of the nurses came back from break time. A strong tobacco smell from her. I asked about where was the smoking place in that NHS smoke free hospital. She told me where she did.

06:00 hours I saw a new patient with breathlessness. He had enlarged multiple lymph glands on the neck suggestive of a serious condition. But his useless GP treated as simple infection.

06:45 hours A new patient asking me to get a urine bottle as an urgent. I did not know where it was kept. Nurses busy with other patients.

07:20 hours. Above patient’s blood result did not come back. I did check with laboratory. They never received it for some reason.

07:30 hours I did repeat blood for above patient. I just leant that it was on his birthday, but he had been on hospital early morning. I just sympathised. I did birthday wish. He said thank you.

08:00 A lady in her 60s told me she was not able to cope with her husband after she looked after him over night with her own will. Normally we don't need any attendants or helps at hospital. she did so herself. In the morning, she had been too tired and got confused. She had been asking to delete her name from next of kin saying that she would not come back to see her husband any more.


08:10 I was bleeped to see an ill patient. I was alone in the room when I examined him. He was over 80. Already dead. But he was still warm. He was my last patient. But a dead body. No family members around.

08:30 I did check some blood results if they were OK

09:00 I had been free man again. No need to see sick people for sometime as I had 3 days off.

What we did in our early days in the UK?

I am just sharing what we did in our early days in Britain. I don't know about new comers.

It is just a time line what we did.

After arriving in the UK as a doctor with PLAB visit visa, we shared a house while preparing and waiting for PLAB test . There are 2 parts of exam. Part 1 is theory one and part 2 is something like clinical exam. Normally we spend those exams for 3 to 6 months, depending on date availability and the number of attempts. (I don't know about recent situation after immigration rule has been changed)

After that, we start applying job. If you are lucky enough, you would get a job in 2-3 months. It is quite variable.

Many people buy a laptop in first a couple of months after working if they still don't have it.

After 3-4 months, many buy a car.

And then, we start saving money to buy a house. We need a deposit money for mortgage.

At the same time, we start preparing to give a sponsor letter to the family member left back home.

After average about 2 years, we normally have got enough deposit money for a house.

So we apply a mortgage and buy a house.

After that, we would keep saving money for another house or investing at somewhere else.

At that time, many Burmese doctors came in with PLAB visit visa. They don't need any work permit. Permit free training visa was still available until 2007 (maybe 2006, I cant remember exactly) . Now finished. No more permit free training visa. If you are non-EU citizen, you need a work permit to work as a doctor in the UK. Law changed. I don't know how these days Burmese doctors come or if they are still keep coming. with visit visa? dependent visa?. I have no idea.

Feedback welcome

Basically feed backs are welcome.

But once I suspect your comment is inappropriate , I would delete it.

A few weeks ago, someone earning ?money from a corporation posted a comment for his or her own benefit. I deleted it simply.

Some people die

Some people are quite vulnerable like ants and simply died in their honeymoon. Something went wrong terribly. Wong time and wrong place? Wong plan? Wrong people? Wrong tradition? Wrong freedom to travel too much? Wrong marriage? Wrong combinations? Like in Final Destination? Anyway, they died as something or many things definitely went wrong. Do you sympathize or not? Do they deserve it or not? Too many questions, aren't there?

Antigua honeymoon shooting victim Ben Mullany dies in hospital

Mr Mullany was declared dead by doctors at Morriston Hospital in Swansea this evening. The 31-year-old had been in a coma since the shooting.

His wife Catherine Mullany died instantly during the attack on the Caribbean island last week.

Mr Mullany was flown home from Antigua on Friday night, and was being treated in the hospital where his wife trained as a doctor. He had a fractured skull and a bullet lodged in the back of his head. More on telegraph.co.uk

UK's time waster customer services

Nowadays, the majority of companies and corporations provide customer phone numbers with 0800 free number, 0845 and 0870 non-geographical numbers. It looks nice. But my experience with BT is just a pain.

A few months ago, I ordered a new land line. For that, I rang its 0800 free number. Automated operator kept me wait for 20 minutes each time, by saying that they were extremely busy. After trying several times during 5 days, I was lucky enough to speak to a human being who said they would process my order shortly. But nothing happened in next 2 weeks. So I emailed. They asked me to give the deposit £20. But no payment detail. I rang. Nobody answered me in 30 minutes. I emailed again. After 2 days, I received a reply with words of sorry and apology. (You may know people in England easy to use sorry or apology liberally as a daily activities. That is what we call ? manner or ?gentlemen's manner :-) )

After sometime, they rang me saying that BT engineer would come to my place on what day and what time to install a new line. I was waiting. But nobody came. So I made an enquiry again by calling them. Each time, BT kept me 20-30 minutes, transferring from one department to another. No clear solution.

Finally, I emailed them to cancel my order. They replied it had been cancelled.

3 weeks later, what surprised me was that I received a BT bill of £172 for new phone line installation. I can't beleive it. Until now, they kept sending me a reminder asking for a payment. I dont know my phone number. I dont know where the BT socket. Now I have got an extra job to sort out this dispute.

I write this post as this new article reminds me my painful experience with BT.

Victor's accents

Victor's different accents

I came across Victor's different accents on youtube.
For me, the one I like most is London Cockney accent as I lived in  East London for nearly a decade although it made me frustrated in my early days in England.

English Accents (Redneck American)

 

English Accents (Cockney)

 

English Accents (Standard British)

 

English Accents (Australian)

 

English Accents (Indian)

 

English Accents (Standard American)

 

Problematic teenagers and moral issue

These days, knife crimes have been going on in London and around. The Home Office figure shows that one person is the victim of knife crime every four minutes. It is more common among teenagers. I suspect it is due to a couple of major predisposing factors.

The first is that those age group has special privilege by law. Even they commit a serious crime, the softer punishment is applied. Police might say "kids are kids". But they do not seem to care about the fact that those kids have got enough power to kill someone else.

The second would be the attitude of youngsters toward others. The availability of knives is not new. Even kitchen knife can be used as a fatal weapon. Why is the incidence of knife crime growing up rapidly these days? The authorities are just making a big plan to crack down carrying knife. Do you think this approach alone can sort out the problem?

We can see more police and community officers have been deployed on the streets. Will this help building a better and safer London? For me, police may have some deterrent effects. Not more than that.

I suspect that the basic phenomenon would be the devil in some teenager's bodies. So long as it exists, they will continue to kill by using alternative weapons or methods.

The question is how to clean up the devil staying inside the body. With the aid of God? By upgrading the social environment? By educating them? By making more friendly environment? By doing cultural revolution? This would be a matter of extensive debates. For an evidence based law making practice, I wonder how many more people needs to make ultimate sacrifice.

Lately, a teenager has been killed again on the street in London.



The boy, named locally as 18-year-old Frederick Moody, became the 21st teenager to die violently in the capital this year.

He was found with stab wounds to the stomach in Lambeth at around 7pm on Thursday and died before arriving at hospital.

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested at his home in Brixton Friday morning and is being held in police custody. More on:

How many years to become a British citizen?

Early this year, there are proposals in British immigration rule , as authorities are trying to make some changes. Previously,for instance, if you have been in the UK for 4 years with work permit or on High skilled migrant programmes, you are entitled to apply for Indefinite leave to remain in the UK (Permanent residency). 1 year after qualifying that status, you can apply for British citizenship. That means you can become a British citizen in maximum 5 years (plus application process), provided that you are clear from criminal offences.

But early this year, the government proposed the new system with 3 steps of immigration status.

1. Temporary residence
2. Probationary citizenship
3. British citizenship/permanent residence

For example, if you are on work permit or Tier 1 (former High skilled migrant status), you need to wait for 5 years. After that, you are entitled for probational citizenship.

The issue is variation of duration of probational citizenship. According to government immigration website, those who participate in voluntary work/ community work, it takes only one year and those who do not bother those works, it will take up to 3 years before applying for citizenship.

Probably, this new system will start in 2009 after approval at parliament is Ok.

That means the the journal to British citizenship will take from 6 years to 8 years if you have got all requirements.


Related news :
Daily Mail
Guardian

Related forum
UK Immigration

Related website:
UK Border Agency

You may think that the process is rather lengthy and complicated. In fact, you can sort out step by step while living and working in Britain. That is we normally do. In 2007, 164,635 citizen applications were approved - the equivalent of one every three minutes.

A friend of mine claimed that becoming a Burmese citizen is more difficult. He is an elder brother of Chinese family as his father moved from China to Burma 50 years previously. He and his siblings were born in Yangon, former capital of Burma. But he is still foreigner there. No right to attend professional schools. On the other hand, his younger brother who moved to the USA after matriculation in Myanmar (former Burma) has already got a US passport long ago.

Today weather'nice

I am on one week holiday and back home again. Just trying not to think about sick people from my work place. I switched off my all mobile phones. Yesterday, I had a proper shower with a fab and a pint of Stella. Basically, the hospital accommodation is not bad. Domestic worker comes and cleans the room on a daily basis. But, I need to share bath room and kitchen with another doctor. So I only had a shower as I don't want to clean bath tub in order to have a bath.

Well today's weather is really nice. Temperature is around 24. I did not miss that opportunity. I opened the door. I invited my friend. He brought 4 cans of lager. I did barbecue. This afternoon, we were talking about the past while grilling pork chops, fish, broccoli,mush room, cutter fish and shrimps. I also took random pictures from my window. Click here

Friday night supper

This photo doesn't mean anything. It's just my Friday night supper. But I won't forget that night and next early morning for some reason.