Parking and Conquering Fears

So much for one of my mates who told me it would be fine to park in the BUPA hospital car park over the road from the main hospital. I got back to my Punto today and found a lovely A4 plastic-pocketed sheet attached to my windscreen wiper by an elastic band. Warning me of the dangers of parking there. It is now blu-tacked to my bedroom door, like I've stolen a traffic cone of something. Couple that with the joy of being charged £11 for 4 hours parking in Soton city centre last week and I just want to drive my bloody car through the Civic Centre right into the council chambers and leave it there. Preferably on a parking attendant.
It seems like every week that we're asked, neigh expected to carry out some new and fearful task on the wards. It started out simple, like just finding a patient on the ward and getting a basic history out of them. Then we were asked to incorporate a relevant examination into the history. Then that was adapted to being told which patient to see, getting a quicker history out of the customer and giving the consultant the bare bones of it during the ward round. That may sound like a fairly responsibility laden task, but if you forget anything then the consultant has all the angles covered anyway, you just look like a bit of knob when she asks you. It gradually gets worse. A few weeks ago we had begun to get looked upon as the blood slaves, people with a clinical knowledge just good enough to stick a needle into somebody, and therefore eternally abusable. I seemed to deal with that lot okay. But now I have to conquer one of my current remaining fears-old people. Everyone has their weak spot, I know medics who are scared of blood. Some can't click with kids. My Achilles heel is people of a certain age, and their common added trait of delirium. For the first time today I got onto the geriatric (whoops, Older People's Care) ward and asked the sister who might be good to clerk (take a history and examination from). She reeled off a few names, of the ladies and gents who might be compis mentis. I took my pick, and introduced myself. It didn't take long before I realised that the nice gentleman may have a touch of cognitive impairment. I asked, "so when did you come in?". He didn't know. Not a good sign. Shit. There is a list as long as my arm of things that make older people delirious (memory loss, hallucination, delusions). And this gent obviously had at least one. We muddled through the history, but his recall was fairly poor and I couldn't tease much from him. I spared him the trial of an examination, but I did notice that his left arm was weak when I put his jumper back on. It turned out that he had left sided weakness from a previous stroke. My point is this-practice rarely fails to improve your ability, at most medical things. I'm sure, over time, I'll develop a better technique for taking histories from forgetful patients, and learn to be opportunistic in examining them, much like with paediatric or psychiatric patients. Because to be honest, it's not their problem that they can't remember-it's mine.
Did a few more pages of my essay today, I'm forced to write the bulk of the text early so I have enough time to ruminate on it and change everything at the last minute.
Finished watching the second series of Green Wing on DVD. Dr Statham, as my girlfriend will grudgingly attest to, is now another one of my surrogate fathers. The list includes Bruce Forsyth, and the guy who ran the local burger van close to my first year halls.