"Hi, this is Ben the Aged Care Intern..."

And so began my first day as a real doctor!!! Yup! Today I was the intern on my team - not a student, not a tag along - the intern! And guess what - I loved it!!! Ok so maybe I had 25 patients (that's alot!!!) to deal with, maybe I didn't have a clue what was wrong with them all, maybe the nurses kept paging me every 5 minutes, and maybe I didn't leave hospital till 7pm on my first day - I still loved it!!! (Maybe I'm just a little delirious right now!) I don't know how I made it through the day but I made it. Everyone at hospital was really really friendly and understanding that it was my first day - right from the nurses to my registrar to my consultants to the patients - that really made a huge difference! I managed to do just about everything in an intern's job description today - from going on a ward round with my consultants, to taking blood and putting in IV drips, to writing discharge summaries, to delivering all kinds of forms to different departments, to attending an intern education lecture, to attending patients who were quite sick! In all that running around, I forgot about eating, I forgot about drinking, and I didn't even think about taking a pee! Lunch was during the intern education lecture and I have to say now that I understand why doctors hate medical students eating their lunch - cos well...they're eating our lunch!!! Got to my lecture late and there were pretty much only scraps left from the platter of sandwiches. And who did I see nearby munching them up but a whole bunch of 4th year medical students - some of them my brother Jon's friends who shall remain anonymous...! So from now on - gotta make it to lectures on time to eat!

But all things considering, I still really really enjoyed my first day on the job. It was busy and hectic but the time really flew by and as the old saying goes - time flies when you're having fun! It felt great having something to do all the time and having some real responsibilities, it felt great feeling like I was making a difference, it felt great working together as a team with other staff, and it felt great relating to patients and their families. I guess I'm only now remembering some of the reasons I wanted to do medicine so many years ago! I guess my job is not just a job to me, it's not just something I do cos I'm being paid to do it. I guess I see it more of a privilege and something that has been entrusted to me to perform with the utmost care, diligence and effort. I thank God that He has put me in that position and I really hope that He will give me opportunities to really make a difference not just to the physical health of my patients but more importantly to the spiritual health of the patients and staff I work with.

Time to sleep before another big day! (^-^)zzzzzzzzzzzz