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too tired to type, should be in bed. 4th long day (08:15 to 21:15) in a row (since Sunday - therefore also the 11th day in the row that I have worked without a break), and have another one tomorrow. Am so tired am hallucinating - was convinced that a tall man in a black coat and a green and blue checked scarf was behind me and put out his arm as I unlocked the door (i swear i felt it brush against me), but when I turned around again, there was nobody. Had to stay up to prepare Portfolio for my beginning of job appraisal tomorrow. contains a CV and 'what i hope to get out of this job'. Have seen/done lots of new stuff - intubating babies, putting in long lines (a cannula running from a peripheral vein to near the baby's heart that is so fine it looks like a piece of string), interpreting baby xrays etc. But its all a bit too much. If only I could do all this AND have some rest as well! have done pretty well with having 3 meals a day (even if dinner is a stale croissant or bag of soggy chips eaten on the train home at 22:00), though still do not feel quite right - muscle aches, losing my balance, seeing and hearing things that are not there. etc. ok should get to bed. oh and did I mention I have to get up half an hour earlier nowdays in order to get into work at 8:15 instead of 8:30?! stupid train. so i have to be up again in 6 hours. what i would give for some sleep.

NICU

...stands for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Am still slightly groggy from last night's on-call (my first ever as Neonatal SHO). It was (as first days always are) rather surreal. NICU is (stupidly) located in a different building from the maternity wards, which means that each time I get bleeped by labour ward I have to run across a courtyard and up 2 floors, by which time the baby is either already born, dried and swaddled (which happened 4 times last night) or is in dire condition with no paediatric doctor present (which fortunately has not happened-yet). Being Intensive Care, I didn't get a moment's rest in my 13 hours, as most of the babies were on some kind of ventilatory support and needed blood tests every 6 to 8 hours. At the end of the night, I had to write a summary on each baby, ready for the morning's ward round. And all that is just the routine stuff. Add to that the blood tests for jaundiced babies on phototherapy on the postnatal ward, antibiotics to be given (the midwives, who are trained to give IV antibiotics, won't do this, while I, who have never given them in my life, had to do them all), emergency calls to the labour ward, babies on the Special Care unit (a notch down from Intensive Care), and you are constantly running behind schedule. There are only 2 doctors covering all 4 wards, and I, as the junior (and arguably rather clueless) one am responsible for clearing all the boring stuff.

The nurses were kinder to me than I had anticipated. Charge Nurse (male version of Sister) for the night was an unbelievably camp, middle-aged chinese bloke. From what I hear he is much more laid back than the other Sisters - large, matronly African ladies who run a tight ship. He even ran a blood gas for me. As I made my 'blood round' armed with lancets, capillary tubes and microtainers, the (predominantly Filipino) nurses chattered away in Tagalog.

a tip for the hungry

Just had to blog this, in case you should ever find yourself wandering the streets of Stoke Newington at night with a rumbly tummy and only a pound in your pocket. I have just had for dinner a Lamacun - sometimes touted as 'Turkish Pizza', but more like kebab roll, except it contains a thin layer of minced lamb in a tomato-based sauce instead of slivers of kebab. This is topped with a generous amount of chopped fresh tomato, shredded lettuce, onion, coriander and chilli and the whole thing rolled tightly. It's large as well - nearly a foot long - and quite satisfying, though not exactly delicious and decidedly gastric reflux-inducing. But still, not bad for a pound and quite possibly the cheapest meal in London. Too bad it didn't come in a vege version. S (good friend from med school who is vegetarian) is here to stay (hence the sojourn from the now cozy flat to a Turkish 'restaurant') so I've got some company in MK's absence. And we can even whinge at each other about medical postgraduate exams.

A manual of neonatal intensive care

...my latest purchase. I've heard scary things about Neonatal Nurses - apparently they try to show you who's boss in the first few weeks by bullying you, especially if you are female. I am hoping that by arming myself with some prior knowledge, this period of brutal initiation will be minimal. I have also got a book on Neurolinguistic Programming for good measure. It is with a large measure of trepidation that I look forward to my new job next week.

With the end of another 6 month post, it is time to update the old CV. And another reminder that my life has been completely taken over by Work. I used to do interesting things like edit the med school's magazine and develop pictures in the darkroom. Even academically, my only publication in a journal so far was as a medical student. The audit project I designed in August has all but stalled because I can't seem to get away from the wards for long enough to work on it and medical records won't let me in after hours. I am trying to write a protocol for the management of coma in children, but have only just managed to read a couple of reviews. I suppose I did invest a lot of time in the Exam (which I shall be absolutely devastated about if I fail). But still... And I haven't really settled in London after 6 months. I have moved house twice, have not really met anyone outside of work, have been sporadically to 8 different churches (none of which is quite right), and still HATE east london with a vengeance. Though I did walk past a newsagent's selling the Hackney Gazette, and fantasised for a few minutes about writing to the editor to ask if they needed a resident doctor. I'd love to have my own column, like Dr. Thomas Stuttaford. I imagine they'd want a qualified GP though, not someone 18 months out of medical school.