 What is up guys? Karma medic here and welcome back to another dose. My name is Nasser and I'm a doctor living and working in the UK. I've been working as a doctor for about 11 months now rotating through geriatrics, vascular surgery, renal medicine and now renal transplant surgery. In this video, I wanna talk about all the things that I love about being a doctor, about working in a career in medicine and what I've enjoyed so much throughout these last 11 months and give you a bit of an insight into what life is like as a doctor and some of the benefits and best aspects of the job that you can expect to have. I'll also have a sister video to this one about all the things that I don't like about working as a doctor, some of the more negative aspects of the job that I think everyone should be aware of when they're preparing to go into medical school or they're looking at medicine as a career. So make sure you subscribe to the channel if you're interested in seeing that one as well but without further ado, let's just get into it. So you've probably heard this one before and I've put it as number one on my list because I think it's such an important driver for me and why I enjoy this job so much. It's that satisfaction and that fulfillment that gratification that I get out of working this job every single day. Being a doctor is extremely fulfilling. I go into work every day knowing that I'm going to have a positive impact and make a significant change in at least one person's life. And honestly, that can be as simple as when you talk to them showing them that you're being attentive, listening to their story, giving them a good solid examination, making them feel heard and listened to, making them feel like you're examining every part of their body and really taking into account what they're saying or it can be something more literal like administering life-saving medication or administering life-saving procedures if someone is terribly unwell. And then there's the more immediate effect and immediate results that you can see working as a doctor. So performing the Valsalva maneuver for someone who's in a supraventricular tachycardia. So this is when your heart goes into a funny rhythm where it beats very, very fast and you can perform quite a simple maneuver asking them to breathe on a closed kind of surface like a syringe and lifting their legs up quickly and that can often fix their heart. If not, you can always administer a medication called adenosine, which can also reverse their heart rhythm. So this is an example of a very quick change. So you can take someone who's really, really unwell, scared, frightened and you can effectively fix them in a very short period of time. Another example of this is draining fluid from someone's chest, what we call drainage of a pleural effusion. Now I'm not competent and trained to do this by myself but I've assisted other registrars in doing this and it's just amazing how you can take someone who's having shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, you perform this relatively quick procedure, drain out that fluid and suddenly they're all better. And then of course, the best example of this is something like surgery. A lot of what we did in vascular surgery was take people who had ischemic limbs or really nasty chronic wounds and infections in their extremities and you would quite literally cut them off in surgery and that patient would be significantly better after that. And when patients take the time to show you gratitude and thanks for what you've done, it's honestly the best feeling in the world. I always remember saying to my family, getting goosebumps now, I always remember saying to my family and to my friends that the first time that a patient says thank you to me when I'm a doctor is gonna be, I'm getting more goosebumps. It's gonna be the time that I know that I've made it, like I've done something significant, I've done something meaningful, I've done something really impactful on another human's life. And I was always looking forward to that day when someone would say to me thank you, thank you doctor for doing X, Y, Z and it was the best feeling in the world. I still remember that patient, I still remember what I did and it's just, it's incredible. And more recently I was just working a set of night shifts and we had a patient and their family who were from the Middle East and they couldn't go two sentences without saying thank you so much doctor, thank you for coming to see me, thank you for doing this, thank you for doing that. I'm so happy that you're here, et cetera. And you know, just hearing this and feeling that other people are just thankful for the work that you're doing, thankful for the help that you're giving is it's an unbelievable feeling. And it's one that I've been working towards for so long and to now experience that on an almost daily basis it's just great. All of these little experiences, they give me the satisfaction and the knowledge that all the work that I've put in studying to be a doctor over the last nine years or so was extremely worth it. And it reminds me that all those times I spent studying, sacrificing other parts of my life for this career for medicine was just absolutely worth it. And having these moments where you can make a small difference but an impactful difference in other people's lives is just so meaningful and it's just great. All right, now this one might be a little bit controversial and I'm sure there's a few doctors out there watching this video who are gonna disagree with me but let me explain my opinion. So my twin sister who lives just behind that wall over there is a corporate lawyer and I've seen her be a corporate lawyer for the last three or four years. And I have a lot of friends who are working in the banking and finance industry, et cetera, et cetera. And those guys are literally on call at all times of the day. When they come home from work which is usually at like 8 p.m., 9 p.m. they will still receive messages from their managers, from their bosses, from their coworkers, even until midnight, one, two o'clock in the morning. I mean, my sister is the most personal example that I've had where she would often get calls and receive messages up until the early hours of the morning on the weekend when she's on annual leave. It didn't matter, you know. The work was following her everywhere that she went which I think is just absolutely crazy and a huge overstepping of personal boundaries and setting a distinction between work and your personal life. But that's a story for another time. One of the great things that I like about my job being a doctor is that once I leave the hospital, once I change into my normal clothes and I leave the hospital, none of that work follows me home. If anything happens to one of the patients in the hospital then there's another team who has come on from the following shift after me who's going to take care of it. And before I leave the hospital I will hand over to the team who's gonna be taking over from me and I'll let them know about everything that's been going on, any blood results that I want them to chase, any scan results that I think they should chase if a patient has been unwell during the day but is now stable, but just to know about in case they become unwell later on. I take everything that I have from my work during the day and I hand it over to someone else. Of course, in a responsible and respectful way you don't hand over the work that you were supposed to do during the day. You hand over the things that are expected to be done when you're not there in the future. When I come home to my room and I sit down on the couch or on my desk there's no homework for me to do. I'd have a PowerPoint presentation tomorrow. I don't have anything that I'm gonna be presenting next week. I can read up on any of the cases or diseases and pathologies that I saw in the hospital but at my own time, whenever I choose whether that's in the evenings or on the weekends or on my lunch break whenever I want I'm never gonna be sitting here at my desk and I'm gonna get a call from someone who says hey patient John Smith who you saw five hours ago is very unwell, what do you wanna do? Now in a very technical and practical sense like I've described the work doesn't follow you when you go home but from a more mental health point of view I'd say the work can definitely follow you home and it depends on who you are as a person and how well you're able to kind of separate what's happened at work from when you come home and are trying to relax. And particularly in the first rotation and maybe in the first half of my second rotation I found that a lot of patients that I'd seen throughout the day I was actually worried about in the evening and I would think about before I wanted to sleep and I would even wake up in the middle of the night sometimes thinking to myself, oh my God did I remember to do this? Did I remember to hand over this? How is this person doing? Cause they've been unwell during the day or even thinking about patients who had passed away or who were really, really unwell that I had had challenging conversations with their family, their next of kin, et cetera these kinds of things would kind of pop into my head and infiltrate my personal life outside of the hospital. Now I think as the months have passed I've developed a bit of a better relationship with how to handle those emotions that arise outside of the workplace. And it's mostly about when you've left the hospital knowing that you've done a good job you've done the best care that you possibly can for the patient you've handed over everything that should be handed over and chased for that patient and there's nothing kind of left undone or wishy-washy. You don't wanna come home and think to yourself should I have ordered that scan or should I have taken blood cultures should I have done this, should I have done that? You wanna make sure that when you're in the hospital you do all the things that you think you should do and if you're unsure if you should do them like I am all the time I talk to my seniors about it and I double check that what I'm doing is right so that when I come home I don't have these feelings of should I have done this, should I have done that? Now I definitely have Dr. Friends who take the negative experiences that happen to them in the hospital and it really filters into their personal life when they go home and it really affects them for the rest of the day and for the weekend or whatever which I think is really tough and it depends on person to person how well you're gonna be able to handle those emotions I think it's definitely something that can be worked on over time I've personally worked on it since I started the job up until now but again, I think there will be people who are always more susceptible to this type of thing. Now being a doctor inherently comes along with a lot of additional stress lots of high pressure situations emotional stressors and conversations about life and death because of this, keeping my mental health in check has been a top priority for me and I've been doing this with BetterHelp this next segment is a paid partnership by BetterHelp if you don't already know BetterHelp is the world's largest therapy service and it's 100% online and their mission is to make therapy accessible with BetterHelp, you can tap into a network of credentialed and experienced therapists who can help you with a wide range of issues to get started, you answer a few questions about your needs and preferences in therapy so that BetterHelp can match you with a therapist that's right for you and then you can talk to your therapist however it is that you feel comfortable whether that's by a video call like this audio call, text or chat you can message your therapist at any time and schedule in live sessions when it's convenient for you and if your therapist isn't a right fit for any reason you can switch to a new one at no additional cost with BetterHelp you get the same professionalism and quality that you would expect from in-person therapy but with a therapist who's custom picked for you and with more scheduling flexibility personally, doing therapy has completely changed my life it's taught me how to approach life more slowly and how to better deal with the emotional stressors that came along with my time as a medical student and now in my working life as a doctor I honestly couldn't recommend it more and talking to someone is one of the best things that you can do for yourself if you're interested, click the link in the description down below BetterHelp.com slash KarmaMedic to get 10% off your first month and help support the channel So forever being a student I think this is a really important one at least for me personally no matter how much studying you do in medical school and no matter how much content you cover and how wide of a breadth of knowledge you think you have there's always more to learn Medicine is just so, so, so, so vast and so broad that no one person can know everything and this makes perfect sense that's why we have different specialties of medicine if you're a cardiologist you're not going to deal with a rheumatological issue you'll call the rheumatological doctor and ask them for their advice or ask them to help manage that patient and for me personally, on a daily basis I might ask anywhere between three and five questions to my seniors or to my colleagues around me about some of the patients that we're seeing some of the pathology that we're seeing the disease, treatments, tests, et cetera you know, there's an infinite amount of questions to ask honestly and this feeling that on an almost daily basis I'm learning something new there's always something that I could learn more about that I could ask more about is fantastic there are just so many things that I genuinely don't know and going through that process of asking about them, receiving the information trying to understand it then maybe reading up about it later on in your own time and synthesizing it all together it gives you a real sense of accomplishment we'll be on the ward and one of the registrars will say ah yes, this is obviously a case of uremic bleeding I'll turn to them and say, you know, hey what's uremic bleeding? I've never heard that word before and they'll explain to me oh, you know, when you have poor kidney function you get a rising urea and this can lead to, I forget what it was maybe a dysfunction in your platelets and so that can make you more likely to bleed I'll be like, ah cool I learned something new and then next time I see a patient who is bleeding and has poor kidney function I can think about, hmm is this patient maybe having uremic bleeding and being in this kind of environment where I'm constantly asking questions I'm constantly learning something new and, you know, I'm constantly being challenged that's the key actually now that I say it out loud it's the feeling of being challenged just not being complacent not feeling like I've learned everything there is to learn in this job and there's nothing left for me to do I'm just gonna do the same thing that I've been doing for the last week over and over and over again no, medicine is not like that at all each patient that you see each time you go do something it's almost always new there's always at least some element of it that is new that you haven't seen before that you haven't dealt with or maybe that you have seen once or twice before but you're not confident with so this is a great opportunity for you to build that confidence just being in this environment where you're constantly challenged and constantly being forced to learn and doing new things and learning new things is incredible I can't imagine anything worse than sitting down to do an office job where you do relatively repetitive tasks or similar tasks based on an existing knowledge base that you have which you know is finite or is complete I'd love this idea that there's so many things that I'm yet to know that I still don't know and I get to learn as the weeks and the months go by I know for a fact that I'm never gonna know everything that there is to know in medicine and like I said before you know that's why we have different specialties I'm completely fine with this and I love this part of the job that you have to ask other people for advice you have to get other people's opinions and we can all think together to solve one common problem it's absolutely fine with me I'm very much looking forward to being one of those people that someone comes to me to seek advice when I have that really great knowledge base that I can help offer advice to my juniors and to other specialties as well So let's talk about some of the variety that I see in my job as a doctor Yes, it's true that common things are common and a large number of patients will present with a relatively small number of symptoms you know things like chest pain, unexplained pain fracture of a bone, whatever it is but my God, do I see a whole lot of interesting amazing and unique cases presentations, pathologies and diseases each patient you meet is unique and they'll have their own life story and their own set of circumstances that led them to come to this position their own set of social issues that they have at home their own list of medications you know their own blood pressure numbers and heart rate numbers and so each person that you see you really have to think about in a slightly different way of course there's an overall flow chart a set of rules and instructions that we have for ourselves as doctors on how to treat and manage different things but you know each person's list of medication is different and those medications will interact differently with each other and affect this person's disease in a different way so you really have to be on your toes at all times each patient will have a different set of allergies you know you want to prescribe some antibiotics well better check their allergies first I think on a daily basis if we see 20 patients there will probably be somewhere like 12 to 15 unique problems and right now I'm on a renal medicine ward and so most patients have a problem with their kidneys but there's so many different reasons you can have a problem with your kidneys and a lot of them will be treated differently managed differently they'll be on different medications require different set of tests etc so there's so much variety to be found even within one specialty or one ward in one hospital I often look back to my conditions list that I built on Notion when I was in medical school which has pretty much every single condition or disease that a patient could present with and some relevant information about it in there throughout my 11 months as a doctor I've seen so many of these conditions and diseases obviously not all of them but to think that I've seen so many and I'm only 11 months in you know I have so many years ahead of me to go where hopefully I'll be able to see a lot more is amazing and this is a big part of what keeps the job exciting for me you know and every patient I go see is different and will have a different problem when a patient comes into ED and you say hey my name is Nasser I'm one of the doctors here in the emergency department what's brought you in today anything could come out of their mouth they could say anything about what their problem is what their condition is what their past medical history is what medications they're saying I mean there's an unlimited number of options that this person is going to tell you and then you need to ask questions to try and figure out what is going on and work through the details and work with them to understand what's been happening and build a timeline of their symptoms I mean it's so much fun this job is amazing I love being a doctor I am enjoying the job so so much and I just can't wait to keep doing it and keep getting better at it and keep growing as a doctor growing my competency my ability to do procedures and surgery it's just amazing that I'm at the very beginning of this path and there's so much possible progression for me to go into and so much for me to learn I honestly can't wait as someone who gets bored very fast and is always looking for a change of pace a change of scenery a change of activity I think this job suits me perfectly So I've called this section Hi, my name is Nasser because of the absurd amount of times that I introduce myself on a daily basis in my job working as a doctor whether that's the patients themselves or other healthcare staff on the ward or to all of the doctors that I call from different specialties around the hospital I think honestly maybe 10 to 15 times in my day I'll say, hi, my name is Nasser I'm one of the doctors working in Reno blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah So, you know I feel like you introduce yourself and you meet so, so, so many people I honestly think that working as a doctor is maybe one of the more social jobs that you can have Every day I work with a large group of people and that includes something like seven or eight other doctors I don't know, maybe five or six nurses on the ward two to three physiotherapists one or two healthcare assistants and those are only the people who are directly on my ward and then of course, all of the different patients that I meet, which is probably like 20 patients or so in a day This is just a tremendous number of people to be talking to every single day and personally, I really enjoy this aspect of the job I love seeing people which I maybe haven't worked with for a couple of days or they've been on annual leave for a week and then suddenly they come back we have a little bit to catch up on and talk about or even when you're meeting patients for the first time you're introducing yourself building a little bit of rapport throughout your examination and your history taking there's just such a strong social aspect to this job and as someone who considers themselves a social person and an extrovert-ish, I guess I really, really enjoy this part of the job not only does it make the job more fun for me but it also really makes me feel like I'm part of a bigger team we're all working together for this one collective goal of treating patients and making them better after we're done with the ward round when we come back to sit in the office in the afternoon and start working through all the jobs we all have a little meeting about how we want to divide the jobs and who's going to do what and you know, we're constantly updating each other on what gets done what new things have come in which patient is unwell that we need to go see and it's just there's a lot of talking a lot of socializing and it makes the job so much more fun for me in fact, when I'm working on call out of hours so between the hours of 5 to 8 p.m. or on weekends from 8 o'clock in the morning to 8 o'clock at night or when I'm working night shifts from 8 o'clock at night until 9 o'clock in the morning this is when I find the job the least fun because I'm practically all by myself with no one to talk to no one to socialize with and I just find it so much more boring the hardest part of the job when I'm working out of hours is dealing with the loneliness that comes along with it you know, when you've got a long list of jobs to do you've got a lot of work to do and you're doing it as a team you're doing it together you're having these little chats in between what you're doing it just makes for a much more fun work environment but when you're alone for a 12 or 13 hour shift just taking care of sick people doing all of this grueling work without anyone to kind of you know, let off some steam with and talk to I find it very very difficult one thing I want to comment on here is that so many people when you call them like other doctors and other specialties that you need advice from so many people pick up the phone and they say hi, cardiology or renal or resp you know, they just pick up the phone and they're like, what do you want? what do you need? and I get it, like sometimes people are stressed sometimes people are really overworked but I find that, you know you're communicating with another doctor you're communicating with another healthcare professional in the hospital I feel like the least we can do is say hi, hello on the phone I make such a significant effort every time I pick up the phone I say, hi, my name is Nasser I'm one of the doctors working in renal blah blah blah blah blah blah and even in my first two jobs in geriatrics and vascular surgery every time I picked up the phone I would ask the person on the other end how are you doing today? every single time without fail say, hi, my name is Desk, blah blah blah how are you today? it was amazing how many people were just extremely shocked by that question it's almost like they wouldn't know what to say on the other end of the phone they were like, I'm good thank you for asking how are you? you know and then we'd move on to talk about the actual medical thing that we needed to discuss but I find that having these calls and being just pleasant and nice on the phone honestly makes my day better and I hope it makes the other person's day better so much nicer than just doing business on the phone you know, pick up, hey, I have a patient he's 50 years old, he's blah blah blah blah like, let's say hello at least before we get into it, you know I'll never forget in my second rotation I picked up the phone I was calling another specialty and I said, hi, my name is Nasser I'm one of the doctors on vascular surgery how's it going? and they responded with do you want me to say something that'll make you feel better or do you want me to tell you the truth? I remember being so taken aback when I heard that because I was thinking to myself all I did was say, how are you? why are you being so sassy with me? I get it that they were probably having a rough day probably having a difficult time but if anything, I would imagine that me saying, how are you today would be a nice opportunity to get a break from whatever it is they were going through yeah, I find sometimes on the phone there's a decent number of people who are not very pleasant to deal with but anyways, maybe I'm the outlier and I just wanna be all nice and happy on the phone but that's just me and then of course you do a lot of talking with patients themselves you know, you ask them, how are you feeling today? how has the medication helped you? is your pain well controlled? and do you have any new symptoms that you wanna tell me about, et cetera and just having those conversations where you sit down, where you listen to them they explain their concerns they explain their worries and then you can provide information that will hopefully make them feel better or update them about whatever's going on with their care these conversations and interactions just feel so great to have to be the person who delivers great news to be the person to tell them hey, this is what we're doing for your infection we've prescribed you these anti-products we're running these tests and when they come back we'll be able to do this, this or that I find it very, very fulfilling I know there's a lot of medical students and a lot of doctors who don't really like the social aspect of the job and they wanna go into radiology and pathology because they don't need to see patients they don't need to talk to other people, et cetera but on your way to that specialization just know that there's a lot of socializing still to be done all right, and that's it for this video thank you so much for watching and I hope this gives you a little bit of insight into what the more positive aspects of being a doctor are at least what the aspects of the job are that I personally enjoy and I find very interesting like I said at the beginning of this video I will be making a sister video to this one about the parts of the job as a doctor that I don't like so much the more negative aspects of being a doctor which I think are also equally important to talk about and equally important for people watching to know whether you're aspiring to be a doctor you're in medical school or you're just a non-healthcare person out in the world and in society who's interested in what this job is like thanks so much for watching hope you have a good day and I'll see you in the next one peace