lala @ Tuesday, May 08, 2007
heyo.. clinic A isn as bad as what i thought. the ppl there are really nice. esp daviez, rashida, the nurses inside the clinic. daviez is my direct in charge, as in shes the one guiding me along.. shes really patient with me you know. this is only my second day at clinic A and ive been bombarding her with every single thing that im unsure of. but she never loses her cool and her smile, always so willing to answer my queries. albeit the situation cannot be confusing and complex; even if she's in the middle of smth, she nv fails to answer my questions still. this is wad i call zai. she's really damn good at what she is doing.
jus two days at clinic A and ive learnt even more things. dun think registration at the counter is chicken feed ok. change that mindset of yours now. there are so many steps to registration and so many different types of registration too. we have encountered numerous weird cases like walk in patients without appointments, those who mix up appointments, those whose doctors change appts without letting us know, patients who come and doctors not around etc.. and different types of registration requires different steps to the system. to sum it all up, it's not easy. and other than that, for different treatments like radiation oncology, medical oncology, surgical oncology and palliative medicine, the registration differs as well.
the clinic is a busy place all the time with 100 plus patients coming in everyday for clinic A. at clinic D we see only abt 1/2 or 3/4 of the patients seen at clinic A. this shows how busy we are now. i dun even have the time to sit on my seat, cos everytime i finish registering one case (which requires the input of data into the com, giving queue tic to patient, print out labels, find case sheets, and put on doctor's table), a new one comes in. and the cycle repeats itself. it may seem monotonous, but it's not cos every case is different, and you meet ppl of different personalities, age, gender, race etc all the time. the nurses and counter girls can get quite stressed some times cos the human traffic flow is too heavy and we have little staff to cope. no wonder theres frequent deployment of ppl ard the 4 clinics to cope with the lack of manpower.
anyhow, i have finally learnt to understand the long waiting time. on the average, patients at NCC clinics have to wait for about 1.5 hrs to see the doc, this is based on what i observed. it is not that the nurses are slacking. in fact they are the busiest ppl ever in the clinic, running ard in the clinic like crazy, jus that you dun see it. in the clinic, i have to siam them so that we dun collide into each other. cos inside, speed and precision is of utmost importance so that we dun keep the patients waiting. mind you, these are not normal patients, they are cancer patients. some are waiting for tubes to be removed from their body, some are old and feeble. sometimes i look at them, my heart really goes out to them. if youre rich and you kena cancer, it's still not too bad. but if youre poor and sick, every consultation, and blood test yoo take will cost yoo a bomb.
today a patient came over to our clinic and waited for 3.5 hrs to see the doc who was late (for whatever reason). I kinda pity her. jus sitting there and staring blankly and waiting for the nurses to call on her.
and there was another one who came today when her appt is tmr. apparently the appt center ppl made a mistake and she made a wasted trip today. shes already so old yet she has to make another trip down tmr. hai. feels quite sad for her.
so dun blame the nurses the next time you are queuing to see a doc, be it in polyclinics or any other clinics. private clinics im not so sure, but at least at NCC/SGH, im sure they are doing their best to get the doctor to see you asap. and im so proud my mum's a nurse.
i get a sense of satisfaction when the patients thank me earnestly for my help (though i didn do much). i try to smile at them at all times to make them feel better. aft all, who likes coming to a cancer center? ive seen jubilant faces of patients (i think they must have succeeded in their chemo/radiation treatments) and they kept thanking the nurses profusely. a vv heartwarming sight.
theres really alot of things happening at NCC, esp clinic A and im still in the process of grasping. trying vv hard to learn and rmb the steps. im beginning to like my job. =D
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