Making The Rounds

My day starts at about 8:30 on the ward at the hospital with rounds on my patients. I share this duty with the other doc in my practice, Rafik. Rafik is Jerry Lewis meets Marcus Welby in Egypt. He is serious momentarily, but in the blink of an eye is sidling up to one of the nurses to make her laugh, or he’s welcoming one of the housekeeping staff back from a week off with a big hug. He can’t stand silence and next to that he hates a straight face.

We make our rounds, visiting any from our practice that may have been admitted overnight. We see all ages and a cornucopia of problems. Rounds usually take me a bit of extra time because I’m trying to translate NZ terminology. I’ve got the drug book out to find their name for the med I want or my Palm Pilot to calculate whether the patient’s iron is low. I never had to think about the units our lab at home uses, but where we in the US might use milimoles per deciliter they use micrograms per picoliter. “I don’t know if you’re anemic or not Mrs. LavuLavu, I’m still trying to figure out what the heck a picoliter is.”

There are no peds nurses, cardiac care nurses or general medical nurses—if she’s a nurse, she’s all of the above. You’ve gotta hand it to these ladies, they where all the hats. Right now I rely on them to keep me on the right track—I’ve got a lot of adjustments to make. There are a few other docs in town. Three of them are permanent, and a fourth is another locum from the States. I’ve already nominated the permanent docs for sainthood for their patience in answering all of my questions. I just don’t know stuff like how to administer chemotherapy or transfer a patient by helicopter (Ha, yeah, you think it sounds scary!)

I have to laugh at what a melting pot the place is. Of course there are Kiwis running around, but it’s all the other variations on the English accent that amaze me. The nurse in charge is Hilary. She’s a Brit and she don’t take no crap…or marmalade, or whatever they won’t take in England. Then there’s a really nice lady from Scotland. I haven’t the faintest idea what her name is, because it was Rafik who made the introductions and to him she’s “The Duchess” because her husband’s name is Duke. She’s 60-something and her brogue’s so thick you could slice it and put it on bread. Madonna is Philipino but has the nicest kiwi accent you ever heard. One of the nurses’ aids is from Samoa, and she sounds just like me. It all makes my head spin.

By 9:15 I’m down on the first floor where my clinic is, making instant coffee to start the day. (Dude, I told you--I’m suffering here. Doesn’t the Red Cross make air drops anymore?)