[wankshaft] It's not a job; it's a profession. [/wankshaft]
I'm feeling pretty sanguine about my job these days. Barbeloids with truly lo-o-ong memories (and I'm talking six, seven years ago) may recall the majorly angsty career crisis of my mid-to-late 20s: I'm someone who drifted into Medicine, passed the exams (eventually) almost despite myself, got my postgraduate membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and suddenly thought, "wooah, this is all going too fast; dunno if I like this". I took two years out in a 'career lay-by' post, before deciding the positives outweighed the negatives, getting back on the ladder and moving to London.
I'm glad I did. Admittedly it's partly to do with my being at a level where I enjoy autonomy without too much responsibility, and almost no drudgery, but I enjoy being a psychiatrist in London much more than I enjoyed being a psychiatrist in Scotland. Which is weird, considering the mental health services are better funded Oop North, and Edinburgh was awash with apocalyptic tales of suicidal junior doctors running themselves ragged looking after claustrophobic, Bedlamesque hospital wards crammed to the gills with scarily violent, knife-wielding West Indian crackheads, all held against their will under the Mental Health Act. While it'd be wrong to say there's no truth to the stereotype, it certainly ain't the whole story. Or perhaps it's just that I'm no longer a junior doctor...
So... although I'm a lot less ambivalent, there are still days when I wonder why I didn't go to Art School instead (and then I remember: a) lack of ability to self-motivate, and b) money) and there are days when I feel completely fucked off with the 'research culture' (the majority of clinicians have little or no genuine interest in pushing back the boundaries of medical science - just being a half-decent doctor - but there's enormous peer-pressure to produce crappy research solely to enhance one's CV). On a good day, however, it's like Xoc said: you really feel like you've made a meaningful connection, helped someone out. It doesn't happen as often as I'd like, but I guess it happens just about enough.
Apart from that, there're all the fringe benefits: the poisoned chalice of drug company freebies (I've enjoyed all-expenses trips to conferences in Moscow and Antwerp, and have just been offered Atlanta - but accept too many and your credibility suffers); the variety, in London, of possible career paths (I could go on to specialise in all manner of weird and wonderful minority areas, within or without the NHS); the interesting people (colleagues, patients, relatives); being treated very marginally more courteously because you've got 'Dr' on all your paperwork.
On the downside: my mother expecting me to entertain her friends with "funny stories" about amusingly mad people; occasionally being cornered by earnest-but-boring individuals who decide I am, by virtue of my job, a Good Listener (hint: I'm not); being unable to watch ER without wanting to scream 'FUCKING FUCKING ARSEFUCKERY!' when they wheel out their stock two psychiatric tropes: Dangerous Psychotic and Comedy Psychotic. And, in HMV, wanting to open the DVD cases for Me, Myself and Irene and replace the discs with one's own gently-steaming turds.
*breathe... breathe... breathe...*
Oh yeah, and shagging nurses. Worked for me. |
