she does it again

i can't believe it. looks like i'm the official S-magnet.
she's gone off to a different hospital for the time being, yet still manages to get me in trouble and pisses me off from afar. now, that's what i call a pro. she does it again. and yes, prepare for my rambles again too.

......

i think it's completely inappropriate, and in my indignation, whinged to a few of the nurses that were unlucky enough to be nearby about it all just to get it out of my system. how fair do you think it is, and how professional would you rate it if you came in with some neurovascular compromise, losing sensation in your hands from a fracture.. or needed to go to the operating theaters to have your macerated, bleeding hand washed and explored and find that you can't have your injuries fixed because they've scheduled a 29 year old guy who was hungover, decided to jump over a concrete block but failed and cut his shin down to bone in front of you. the guy's otherwise fine, walking on his injured leg and denying pain. yet, he gets to go to the operating theaters ahead of you because, well.. he's going out with one of the doctors.

so yah. the boyfriend showed up to our ED. S called to ask my senior registrar to give him the vip treatment. couldn't get through and called me instead. !@#!#$@. i hate being cornered like that.

S had said he was being triaged in ED, and if i could make sure he gets treated correctly and if i would go see him later when i had time. in my head, i was thinking "later, definitely". after all, i figured that if the nurses were triaging him, they would know how bad his injury was.. and if it was bad enough, they would give me a call to review sooner or later. plus, i had just been assigned to procure all the scans this one patient had so i could email them to another specialist up in sydney. for those of you who have no idea how hard it was to extract all images from the guy's CT, MRI, ultrasound and plain films from the computerized xray system to something sendable by email.. it was fricking time-consuming!! thank goodness for irfanview =) and that was half the battle. the other half was to contact this specialist i've never met to ask him to look at these films for us. honestly, wouldn't blame him for asking "and just who in the world are you again?" .... oh, and then to be bombarded by calls every 5 - 10 minutes from the rest of the hospital, ED and GPs from all over the state at the same time. frankly, i didn't have time to go see S's boyfriend.

so, i was there trying to sort this guy with his gazillions of images out and i get a call from my senior reg. she happens to be good friends with S and finally got S's message about the bf. i nearly lost it when my senior reg told me to go and see the boyfriend in ED now "as a matter of priority". that phrase is so gonna irk me to pieces like how bush's "war on terror" catch-phrase irked a few people. i could hear my volume dial up a few notches and the pitch rise a bit as i slowed my words down and enunciated quite slowly to my senior reg as she was deaf and stupid that "i know he is in ED but i am sorting out the abscess guy for our boss, and i will see the boyfriend as soon as i can afterwards." it was enough to get the attention of the guy sitting next to me at the computers who turned and introduced himself as the consultant of the team we were dealing with. man, he must've thought i was some hot-headed arrogant orthopod in training after hearing my tone of voice =( i was so appalled and embarrassed..

so anyway. yah. i survived. i feel mean and i like it, just at this moment. i feel mean deriving happiness from the knowledge that there's some justice in the world because two such horrible people had managed to find each other. i had to take a history from the boyfriend and book him into theaters for his wound washout. his wound was the size of a 20 cent piece. yah. that's more important and urgent than that macerated hand with cuts all over it with blood dripping down. right. sorry, i digress. i haven't quite swallowed the whole bitter pill yet, you see - getting bossed around by a senior registrar i don't respect, having to choose between professional duty and not offending the senior, having to even have to see the loser boyfriend at all... i know what the right thing to do is, and i know i'll get into trouble if i do the right thing. that's the bit that irked me the most. knowing that S got with a loser made the bitter pill a bit easier to swallow... not only does he smoke, but is also a pisshead. the idiot was drunk after 10 pints of beer last night and felt it would be appropriate to tell me he's still hungover at 5pm the next day. *points to an imaginary level above my head* respect. *points to the spot under my shoes* where S and her bf stand.

gnaaarrgh. it just really really gets to me though i know i shouldn't let it. i'm all about following the principles. any principles. life principles would be nice. it infuriates me to no end that people with more urgent injuries get delayed treatment just because this one loser had a girlfriend who happened to work in the field his injury fell into, and so happened to know the senior reg working that day who was just as pushy, arrogant and inconsiderate as his girlfriend who would find that bossing the junior registrar and delaying other people's treatment sat well on her conscience. it sucks to come back to reality.