Part 2, Housemanshit or Housemanship?? Make the Difficult Housemanship Life a Happy One!

First of all, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Dr Celine Lee,owner and writer of my homegrown blog named Celine’s World with over 4 million total page views with its facebook page. At the same time, I’m a medical doctor, practising paediatrics in a hospital in Selangor.

Many readers have asked about my job and my work-life balance recently, some  even think that ’i'm actually a fulltime blog writer to the extend of neglecting my patients during my work time. Come on, everyone has their own leisure time, and I can be anyone after my working hours. Being a doctor doesn’t means that I have to sacrifice 100% of my time for my duty. Life is stressful and I have my own way to distress myself. In this case,travelling and blogging are my preferred options. In short, getting a hobby is important to make sure we are not straining ourselves too much in our daily living. Travel makes me happy, and blogging makes me reminisce the happy moments and these activities relax me a lot.

so, is a housemanshit or housemanship Xp 

At the same time, my career is already more or less on a set path. I’m a paediatric doctor in training,  doing about 4-5 oncalls  a month in average. Being a paediatric doctor, we have to be very careful in every judgement, calculation and our management. One wrong dose can kill a child, so I suppose you can just imagine how stressful it is. For those who think that I’m doing my job just to earn a steady income, I would say this is only partly true, as I love my current job  more than a blogger at the moment. I passed my professional MRCPCH part 1a and 1B and ’'m now preparing for part 2A of the Royal Colleges exam.

So, why is work life balance  important as a doctor?? Let me share with you a real story of my junior. He  was a very hardworking houseman in the department when he joined the force. He was very dedicated and responsible in his work, and would make sure he completes his tasks perfectly every day before he calls it a day. He came to work at 5am in the morning, and often he would be working overtime in the hospital, up to 9pm at night. As his seniors/ medical officers, we could not recall how many times we had to chase this houseman back  home, as it was too dangerous to go back home at night. He maintained his high achievement performance for a month, then we started to feel something was not right. His performance was declining.

He suffered from sleep deprivation as he spent too much time in working. He still helped out with the department projects during his off days, which he was supposed to get a good rest at home. One day, his colleague told us that he was crying in the houseman room as he could not take it anymore after a year of housemanship with high pressure. He was a hardworking man, which we really appreciate it. But in working life, hardworking doesn’t mean that you are a good houseman. We have to learn how to work smart and work fast, so we can then finish our job on time, not leaving any unnecessary Passovers to  others, and get back to work on time. This will ensure that we have enough time to rest at home and get ourselves well prepared for the next day. I’m not so what happened to him after, but I hope he is doing fine.

Im lucky to have a bunch of good friends, and best of all, my husband’s support and companion along with good family support during my housemanship. I have my regular TCA (appointment) for travelling for every 4 months, which means I would take my end of posting leaves, and got myself to travel somewhere. I went to multiple local staycations during my housemanship, to name a few, Taiping, Kuala Kurau, Sabah, Gunung Jerai, Pulau Rawa and many more. I went for a 5 days road trip from Bangkok to Khao Kho with my unimates, and it was awesome!! We enjoyed the sunrise and sea clouds from the top of mountain, immersed ourselves in the sunflower garden, and beautiful sunset in the windmill farm. During the end of my housemanship, I went to Tibet and Chengdu for 14 days together with my husband (as his birthday gift), and it was my most memorable trip ever. I didn’t expect to step into Tibet before age of 30, but thanks to Shu Jin for the arrangement!! From colleagues to becoming my travel mate, I’m really thankful to have her as guidance throughout my housemanship. 

from colleagues to travel mate and BFF!! lets go Hunza next. She is always an idol in my life~ 

So how do I keep myself moving forward when having a good life balance?? Time management and self discipline is the key point. I plan out my career pathway when I was in my 5^th posting, with help from my lovely paediatricians and paediatric seniors that time. For each posting, I will spend my time for reading, in order to pass the end posting exam and complete the log book. When it comes to  preparation for my MRCPCH exam, I subscribed the 6 months online package from Pastest, and I will make sure I do at least 25 questions  each day, starting about 5 months prior to the examination. Whenever ’'m free at work, I will start doing my online questions and read on the ebook.

when your best pal was preparing for MRCP and i was studying for MRCPCH. 

Thanks pal for being the most stern mentor ever haha. 

Instead of spending my time on online drama or games, I spend most of my leisure time on planning out the content of my blog. Each blog post would take me 5 days time from creating the theme, drafting out the content, editing pictures, arranging the sequence and writing out. It is not easy to write a blog post to be honest, especially a travel blog post, as I have to make sure I deliver the correct travel information to my readers. Well it is part of my passion and I enjoyed it a lot. I will come out with at least 4 blog posts in a month.

January – February 2019 was a roller coaster to me, I had my registration of marriage in 1/1/2019, then I flew to Sabah for a 4 days trip as my end of posting, joined as a houseman in anaesthesiology in mid January, celebrated Chinese new year in the early Feb, and went for my FOP and TAS exam in Singapore mid of February. I passed my exams, still cant believe I really made it, guess its true every effort was worth it in the end.  

we went for a high tea together to celebrate my ROM~ 

Besides a good life balance, how to make sure we have a happy housemanship life instead of a “housemanshit”life
Another important key point is to keep positive at all times. Never give up even in the darkest time. Every problem will have its own solution, and we just need to work it out. Whenever Im stucked with the procedures, my seniors and medical officers were  always there to help, and from there I learnt my mistakes , and how they managed the patients appropriately.

Failing during the first attempt is something very normal, but don’t let this pull us down. Try for the 2^nd attempt and make sure we do not repeat the same mistakes as the first one. Learn the good part from the seniors, and how the superiors communicate with patients form time to time, as this is the best lectures that we can have in Housemanship. It’s okay if we are not performing well in a department, no one is perfect. If we can’t really excel, then lower down your expectation and keep positive. Im not really good in medical, and I was terrible in recognizing the bones in orthopaedics, was scolded multiple times as useless or “bodoh” in between, but so what?? It doesn’t mean that Im not a good houseman, it just shows that I’m not suitable in the field. Look at the positive side, it helps us in recognising our career path in the future.

Besides that, always make sure you have someone to talk with. It’s okay to joke and laugh aka bitch about your housemanship life from time to time, just make sure you pick a trustable partner. Everyone complains on their job, and it is normal. Thankfully, I have my 10 years BFF Eugene in the field with me, and he really guided me a lot throughout  housemanship. Well thanks to him for forcing me to pass both of the examinations at the same time haha. Not to forgot Feena and Nina who backed me up when I was so down during the lowest point in my housemanship. And my dear Wahidah and Iylia, who always listened to my complaints from time to time, and came up with fruitful advices. Special thanks to Wahidah for being my swimming partner when I need a swim to get out from the stress!  And to name a few more, Mimi, Adilah, Amalina, Shu Jin, Chuah, Koki, Haziq, Zul, Afifah, Aminah, Ain and many more. And oh yeah!! The almighty Kak Delfinie. We formed a great team together and created a lot of nice memories during our housemanship.

I would say they are one of my strongest pillars during my housemanship journey. Of course, my family and my husband come first Xp 

Iylia is not in this picture, I think she was the photographer~ 

So ya, this is my sharing and I hope I can write more on my housemanship life soon.