For all who are not familiar with medical jargon, the HO is the House Officer, the one at the bottom of the foot chain
The 100% perfect house officer should have the following desired qualities:
1. stomach of corrugated iron - cuz u might not get to have dinner, midnight snack or breakfast after all! in fact it’s more practical to just give yourself some gastro-protective agents. heh. like nexium.
2. an indwelling catheter. it’s both prophylactic as well as therapeutic. prophylactic to prevent UTI from all that chronic retention of urine since we dun have time to go to the loo. therapeutic in cases of ARU aka acute retention of urine. hahaha… and i suppose it could help chart our own i/o (intake-output) chart better. can maintain hydration status while on call.
3. big pockets - to carry extra plugs, needles, syringes, swabs, connectors and watnots. the extremist would probably attempt to carry culture bottles and sterile gloves along as well. hah!
4. the uncanny ability to withstand oily, dusty hair all night and all through the next day too! ewww…
5. hooked up to an iv drip of D5/10 with caffeine added…
6. insensitive nose - to all stench (such as your own B.O.) in addition to the usual dirt, vomitus, urine and shit from your patients
7. do an ECG in 30s (chk out SA’s blog for instructions), do a blood culture with complete ASEPTIC technique in 7min, bloods in 3min and so on…
8. have multiple limbs to do ECG plus ACS (one of the blood tests) together hahaha… especially in hospitals where u are expected to do all ECGs yourself.
9. the astonishing ability to compartmentalise packets of information. namely, one package for hypocounts, another for x-rays, blood results, another for breathless desaturating patients, another one for chest pain… and so on…
10. this i’m not joking, you’ve got to be helpful! for example, if you are having a helluva good time lazing around, you should go look for the other two HOs and see whether they need any help. :)
