I wore my scrubs for the first time in ages to make a video for a social media challenge so it got me reminiscing on my time as a house Officer lol. If you read any of my work-related posts from when I was an house officer, you’d know it was no smooth ride.
Yes, I downplayed it on my social media because it got to a point where someone said to me “oh you’re the girl that’s always complaining about work” and I was taken aback like – me, associated with complaining? Ahhh. So I actually purposely stopped sharing my pains (yes because I stopped tweeting about it doesn’t mean it all stopped 😂)
I think the root of my problem with how I was treated during house job by some people was this expectation that if I’m nice people will be nice back – ah that theory was proven wrong countlessly. 😂😂
I got to understand that some people don’t quite apply that Newton’s law to their human interactions lol, in their case every action didn’t get the equal and opposite reaction, they just reacted as they deemed fit and my soft heart was on the receiving end lol.
Though there were times I really, really wanted to quit and just go back to London, I had friends and family that would encourage me, they’d say you have come this far, “don’t give up!” “It’s just a year”, “you only have x months left” and day by day I made it out.
And so that’s how Chop Life Liz was born my people! When I was off duty, I made time to turn up no matter how small. Cinema dates, tennis at the country club, beach weekends away – my dear once I was not on-duty I was strictly off and I loved it. 😂
My advice to anyone starting a new role – don’t underestimate emotional trauma and go prepared. Have your healthy defense mechanisms on deck and pick up new ones in case the ones you had before don’t quite cut it, it’s a new experience after all.
Above all, trust God. He took you there, He won’t leave you out to dry.
All the best loves!
Dr. ETP xo
(P.S. look out for our video on my social media next week, it’s going to be fun haha)
