A day in the life of a GP registrar in Scotland.

Written for the YLCF "A day in the life of..." Carnival (http://www.ylcf.org/)
I have just got back from a 2 week holiday in India, so still in that strange state of having passed between 2 worlds. The journey took 30 hours from door to door with not enough sleep so passed 12 hours on Saturday night in deep slumber and slept very well on the Sunday night too. Today as yesterday the sun is shinning, and it is a beautiful autumn day with some trees already bare but others covered in glorious reds, oranges and browns.

But Monday morning sadly, it is grey, but not raining, with that coolness in the air, that is so very refreshing after the hot stickiness of South India (but I still miss it!).
I wake up at 7:15 am, wash my hair, get dressed, dry my hair, eat some breakfast, make sandwiches, put on a necklace and earrings and head out the door just after 8 am. I have a little second hand green Corsa with a lovely dent in the side and it makes all manner of funny noises but it gets me to work and it start thankfully despite the previous 2 weeks of non-use.

I listen to the Today programme as I drive, some politician being ruthlessly interviewed. Arriving, at work I have forgotten my password for the computer so phone the help desk and my first patient is seen 10 minutes late but I catch up. The morning is full of variety as it always is, different faces and problems, prescriptions and health advice leaflets, compromising and advising. I finish my surgery/clinic at 10:30 on the dot but not all the paper and computer work, but make a cup of tea before embarking on my dictation and case notes. I miss the doctor's coffee break partly because there is so much to do but so does everyone else as far as I can see. I am doing visits with my GP trainer, and so we jump in her car head first to the house of a 99 year old and then to a Nursing Home to see five of the residents. We discuss my holiday in India, and then on the way to the Nursing Home, a book based on the diary of a lady who was born in 1900 and died at the age of nearly 100 and all the changes she would of seen. The Filipina Nurse at the Home is full of the cold, but she directs us here and there and all is done by about 1:30 pm but we are still late for the doctors meeting arriving at 1:45 for the last 15 minutes. I eat my peanut butter and marmalade sandwiches and drink tea as talk shifts around the table.

I then have an hour to do more paperwork before a tutorial at 3 pm. I make a list of issues and questions I have, but before starting make more tea for us both. Later we set up a video camera that I will use later in the week for a video surgery. I dash out of the surgery leaving some things to be sorted the next day, as I drive to a friend's house prior for dinner to a missionary ( OMF) prayer meeting. The speaker works for OMF in Singapore advising parents and families in regard to home-schooling. The hostess and my other friend are both teachers so discussion focuses around this and other OMF chit-chat. We eat spaghetti bolognaise and a fruit flan and then Linda and I do the washing up and Sheila (the prayer group leader) and Moira (the speaker) set up in the living room. Everyone starts arriving, different voices mingling including that of Quest, Meryl's faithful guide dog.

Moira speaks in 20 minute sections, rewarding us with a prize for a question in each section, but they are all rather obscure. However I manage to win a batik cloth with Emmanuel in Chinese and English for pointing out Swine Flu to be the likely cause of a Giant Teddy Bear with a mask sitting on the pavement of Orchard Road, Singapore. Health Promotion Exercises in a country understandably frightened after SARS. And we pray for missionary kids and how they can be educated in the situations where their parents work.
I drive home as everyone starts to drink yet more tea as am still tired and jet lagged. I shower, watch some Spooks (a BBC drama about MI5)and then fall into bed with a John Simpson (BBC journalist) book but so tired read only a few pages and then fall quickly asleep.