Layla's space

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

And so it begins....

I started my Oncology SpR job on Monday. I managed to have three whole weeks off after my SHO job finished, which was lovely. I was totally relaxed and chilled out (well, as relaxed and chilled out as I get anyway). Now, however, I'm wound up tighter than a very tight thing. Already.

I feel, how shall I put it? Totally out of my depth. I feel like a moron 90% of the time. I didn't go into this expecting to know everything, not by a long chalk, but my God I didn't expect this. I feel totally stressed out and anxious pretty much all the time and sometimes it's a struggle to keep the hysteria out of my voice when I talk to people. I cry when I get home each night (and this evening I actually cried on the Tube, which was embarassing).

I don't know what I expected. I mean, if you spend 4 years doing medicine as an SHO you get pretty confident I suppose, so that when you're thrown into a 'new' specialty at a relatively high level it's a shock. But I've done plenty of Oncology as an SHO, not to mention a locum SpR job at a large London teaching hospital, so I kind of thought I had a head start I guess.

OK, OK, I know. Starting a new job is stressful. Starting a new job at a more senior level is stressful. Starting a job in a specialty when you're not really a specialist yet is stressful. Understanding why it's shit doesn't make it any less shit though.

Plus I think that I'm so freaked out by the new place, by learning how the system works, by coping with the new seniority and by the (very) steep learning curve, that I'm not performing at my best. I'm getting flustered by situations that would not have flustered me had they happened to me in my old job 3 weeks ago. I can't fucking THINK straight.

I just don't want to screw up. I want to be good, I want to learn fast and I'm trying but it's so fucking hard and I feel awful and I can handle that for a while but I'm so worried it's going to be like this forever, or for a long time anyway. I can't do that, I really can't.

My Consultant isn't thrilled to have been landed with a 1st year SpR, I can tell. He's pleasant enough most of the time, but whenever I ask a question, or for clarification of something he's said, he gets really abrupt and I can tell he's annoyed. He explains things at 500 miles an hour and expects me to understand and retain every single word, and if I ask him about the same subject later on because I've not remembered all of it he gets snappy - 'As I said before....'.

Well FUCK YOU. I'm fucking trying here, OK. I am NOT going to get upset in front of you, or anyone at work. I am going to keep my fucking head, I am, I have to, and I am going to be good. Just give me a bloody chance, you bastards.