O house job , why art thou killing me?

(Otherwise known as 12 ways house job destroys you completely)

By Anonymous House Officer (This is more for plausible deniability than being actually anonymous ) 

There's a reason every doctor forever remembers two things. Final prof and house job. One is the epitome of isolation and cramming with your books feeling forever alone. The other is the pinnacle of 24/7 presence in company which you probably don't need and definitely don't want.

1. Your body hurts all over

If you never thought about all the muscles your body has , you will definitely think about them now. Each and every muscle will hurt in a different way to remind you of its existence. It can result from reasons as varied as odd positioning (the retractors are necessary evil at best and torture device for house surgeons at worst) to plain old electrolyte deficit.

                                                                                          

2.You are permanently sleep deprived 

When you do a 24 hour emergency or a hectic 12 hour ICU you just don't make up the sleep. And don't get me started on Ward week sleep deprivation. It's permanent. PERMANENT I tell you. I wake atleast every night the next week talking about random BSL and unsent calls. 

3. Your Chronic ailments have a newfound life

You always had a tendency of headache? Welcome to world of migraine. Your joints used to hurt when you exerted too much? Welcome to the doubt-filled world where you are always thinking whether it's permanent vitaminD deficiency or some form of arthritis. On skirts of IBS ? Now you live in it.

4. Your social life is non-existent. So is your life 

When your friend returns from abroad , she will have to make time to come to hospital because it's ward week. And she will still have to make do with half of you sleeping because it was a particularly tiring type of day. Between calls, emergencies and ward weeks you will literally spend days where you haven't seen half of people you live at home/hostel with.

5. If there's any shred of your social life left its all about your current department

 Which means you are more up to date about fiancées and spouses of your seniors than about the nikah dates of your best friends who are not doing house jobs or are in other departments. 

6. Good healthy food makes you cry happy tears 

I am all for eating out but the particular brand of deliveries available at Mayo can make a far stronger person than me cry. And if your seniors are all about ordering food together you will either have to make do with Internees (in worst) or KFC  or Karachi Hot n Spicy Handi (the unofficial mascot of our group ) in best scenarios  . There's probably equal parts oil and blood running in my veins right now.

7.The food discussions which take as long as laparotomy (atleast)

In Ramadan and even on regular calls , ward weeks and emergencies the food discussions take an unprecedented amount of duration. The results on the other hand are surprisingly sad and we always (no idea how) come back to eat the afore mentioned things. 

8. The jinn of protocol has become one of your worst nightmares

If you are in a department where 'protocol patients' are frequent be ready to be worked up and bistified to death even after doing everything right, 

9.You have a love-hate relation with your registrars (And in my case I mean like-hate at best)

Your registrar is probably a nice person. Probably laiq too. But if you are getting over-worked because he/she is being nicer to  other people then niceness ka humen ka Kia faida. Seriously. 

10. Even after working 72 hours a week you are still utterly lost

It doesn't matter if you are giving it all, with central induction and what-not everyone is feeling lost AF . 

11. You make terrible decisions when you are put at a spot (ok that's probably just me)

Whether it's choosing your speciality (literally just writing is feeling as if I am putting salt on our wounds) or just chewing your registrar's head off for not giving you Eid holidays . (Maybe I don't regret it. He had it coming)

12. Your pay goes into an unfathomable sinkhole (if you are lucky enough to be paid)

Whenever you try to tell someone about your hardships you receive the reply "atleast you are earning " .

Guys seriously the pay is spent so fast (mostly on stuff related to point 6 ) you sometimes have to pinch yourself to be reminded that this nightmare of being broke is real even when you have a 'real' job. (TBH house job is much closer to , forgiving me for being politically incorrect, slavery than an actual job )