Finding downtime can be difficult

Dr Paul Stewart writes that it is very difficult for a doctor to go on holiday and leave the day job behind, as there is invariably somebody looking for medical help or even a prescription

A family member had just passed her final medical examinations and had headed out for the evening with her immediate family to a hotel for a meal. The experience of life as a doctor was not far away. On their way in to the restaurant, a man had collapsed on the floor and the woman’s sister helpfully suggested that she was a doctor.
She soon found herself making an examination and recommendations, even before she had a chance to celebrate getting through the final hurdle of being able to call herself a doctor. It was not long afterwards that she had to attend to someone on an aeroplane flight.
For my part, while travelling on board Irish Ferries to Wales during a very stormy trip, in which the lower decks were bedecked with a coat of multi-coloured vomit (and where I spied the still-beautiful star of film (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956 version) and television (‘Bracken’), Dana Wynter, cross one such deckspace with a look of restrained disgust…the two of us alone across a vomit-strewn deck), I heard a call for a doctor to come to a certain distant part of the ship, which I subsequently located and approached.
The crossing was obviously a popular one for doctors. When I located the spot, I found several standing there beside someone on the floor – none looking like they were in any way attending to same.
As I leaned over the patient, whom a helpful employee of the ship had identified, I heard the others talking among themselves. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a dermatologist,” said one. “I’m a geriatrician,” said another. “I’m doing paediatrics,” said a third. It was left to what was, at the time, the junior hospital doctor (me) to make the assessment and recommendations, while the others held some sort of a social occasion.
None asked if I wanted/needed a hand. They were probably all thinking to themselves that it is hard to get away from work.
Short summer break
Such is the story of the following, which was related to me and which I have adapted slightly. Aged 50, this general practitioner was due to go on a short summer break following the end of the afternoon surgery. It had been a leisurely one. He felt, as one does, if one is lucky enough not to be so busy, that he was already a holidaymaker when he deigned from this hallowed perspective to see the next patient.
The moderate chronic bronchitic whom he then saw had a little bit of extra cough and wheeze. The doctor took his time, carefully and equably examined him, found no crepitations, indeed no apparent differences from the last examination, and in addition, normal blood pressure.
He made and gave his recommendations, whereupon the patient happily left. The doctor looked to see if there were any more patients and, when he asked the receptionist, received a ‘no’ twice to his question. It seemed he was ACTUALLY ON HOLIDAY.
He said a pleasant goodbye to the receptionist. He went home to put the already packed case into the car and hugged goodbye to the members of his family. The journey to the Killarney lakes would be a long one, but he had decided to divide the journey and stop at a familiar bed and breakfast establishment on the way down from the Pale, even though the fishing keenly beckoned.
Woke refreshed
The overnight stay allowed him to wind down further. A bite to eat, a quick chat with the hostess, a quiet evening’s walk beside a stream on a warm evening with a pleasant light breeze caressing his cheeks and a read of his book before sleep…he was ready to forget he had ever doctored anyone. His sleep was sound. He woke refreshed. Continuing his journey, he listened to Lyric FM. The music was soothing, though not soporific. He arrived early and was there to meet two friends from Waterford for a late lunch.
They arranged to hire a boat and went to their cars and gathered their equipment. They settled into it and pushed out onto the lake, rowed out, chatting and joking, stopped, set up their rods, baited them and cast their lines. They settled down to enjoy the peace. Each of his companions reeled in a small trout before the doctor began to feel one biting and began to reel it in.
He was interrupted by one of his companions, who pointed to shore. Someone stood there with a megaphone and he realised that he had heard someone speaking through it but had not attended to what had been said, due to keen concentration on the matter in hand. Nevertheless, he stopped what he was doing, handed over his line to his companion and listened again, thought he heard the word ‘doctor’, nodded and asked the other to row closer.
His companion rowed in until the man with the megaphone could speak without megaphone help and still be heard. The megaphone man said he was sorry to disturb them, but a patient had called, quite in a state and looking for him: looking for her prescription.
Our doctor went ashore, got the details and phoned the patient and then the pharmacist, whom he knew, to okay the prescription. He never learnt how his patient had found out where he was.