A Fist full of Dollars

Recently I've been experimenting with the way I do work. A financial squeeze and the onset of a winter freeze sent me looking for alternative ways to locum. Trying to combine General Practice with stints of emergency medicine, I based myself in a regular half time GP job for 3 weeks a month and then flew from New Zealand to Australia for a week of emergency work. I learnt a few good lessons in this time. In hindsight they are so predictable that I could have asked my Mother. The first being, air travel is probably more taxing than working. The hours I spent in transit meant I knew the store workers by name in the Sydney airport, where the good restaurants are, in other terminals, and whether there were any new releases in the sunglasses range.

The next lesson I learnt is that there is a reason why most of these rural towns can’t find Doctors, but I will stick to the less offensive reasons. The work is hard- large numbers of sick patients with only your shadow as backup. Some days I felt like M.A.S.H as the ambulances would pile in Aussies, casualties of hard living and excesses. This is both challenging and interesting causing that irrational pleasure of being on the edge of chaos.

I learnt my solo lifestyle of rural locums is fun for a week. I enjoyed having a messy hotel room, eating out of plastic containers, getting up at 5.30am to go surfing before work as I could go to bed at 8pm. Not having a TV at home I learned the joy of breakfast TV, the presenters actually become your friends. I was also reminded of why I am a professional locum, so I don’t have to work nights. This inhumane practice should be delegated to those Doctors caught fiddling with the books or other things. 

I also learnt the sun doesn’t always shine on the sunshine coast. My last trip saw metres of water fall from the sky, cutting of my road to the beach, turning the water pooh brown and reminding me of the climate I had tried to escape.

So after nearly six months of this manic behaviour, I have hung up my guns for a few months. Not because I didn’t enjoy myself, but because in the meantime there has been a bidding war at home and there is gold in the hills that I love. But wait, a small ad in a meadiocre medical publication may change that... 'jobshare wanted in the South Island'.