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There are differences betweencelebrity ‘IT girls’ and the averagedoctor, but I often wish there werenot. Their privileged lives are somuch easier than that of a juniordoctor. I’m serious! On a heavynight on call we would all love tochange places with either of theHilton sisters or even a lesserknown but equally troubledHollywood waif.

We sit in the canteen at 3am,wondering why the paparazziaren’t jostling to get a shot frombeyond the hot food counter. Wewonder why we worked day andnight through medical school, onlyto find that we now work for anorganisation where thesandwiches don’t come out of thefood machine, no matter howhard or how often you kick it.There is of course an art to kickinghealth service food machines (notcovered in any depth at any UKmedical school). These machinesare specifically designed to starveall doctors to the bone. “Keepthem hungry – Keep them Keen!”By the time you do coax the sorryexcuse for food out, the machinehas gobbled up all your changeand then….the arrest bleep goesoff. It wouldn’t be a surprise if alldoctors ended their on-calls asskeletons and Sir Bob Geldofstarted chivvying up humanitarianaid for them.

Being on call is about the veryfabric of the hospital conspiringagainst you. It’s about accidentallydropping your bleep down the looand thanking god that the toiletwas unused. It’s about fishing the

hated thing out, drying it under thehand-dryer and then trying topresent a plausible and lesslaughable explanation to theswitchboard operator. It’s abouttripping over the urine bag at acardiac arrest. It’s about lookingover the operating theatre at themost wonderful dark hairedsurgeon you have ever seen, youreyes meeting, your eyelashcatching on your contact lens. It’sabout that contact lens flyingaerodynamically into the patientsopen abdomen. (It’s true there is apatient out there, going about hisbusiness with a contact lens in hisstomach – either that or thetheatre suction actually worked.)

It’s about being exhaustedbecause millions of patients allneed or want a little piece of yoursoul to survive the night. It’s aboutcoming out to find your car hasbeen clamped because it wasparked one inch over the line. It’sabout tolerating full on heating inthe summer and freezing throughthe winter. It’s about on-call roomsthat are visited by rats.

Now I’m not referring to seniormanagers when I say rats. I meanthe actual long tailed rodents.There are of course many sub-typesof such rodent depending onwhich side of the vodka bottle(remember the advert?) you arelooking through. It also depends

on how many hours you’ve beenon-call for and how good yourimagination is. It’s about cuttingpictures of the Chief Executive outof the hospital magazine, placingthat picture on the back of thedoctors mess door and aimingspare cannula’s at it – much like adartboard. Whoever gets him rightbetween the eyes gets a freedinner from the hospital canteen!We call this stress relief and it is thereason we appear serene when itcomes to patient care.

So when on call for long periods,junior doctors really do have a lot incommon with those party girls fromLA. It’s the simple life we live. Wecan do thin, we can do catwalks andwe do community service but getpaid for it. The career adviceshouldn’t be get three A’s at A Levelthen head off to medical school. Itshould be instead get skimpy shortskirts, do your lippy and be a chick.Head off to the US and be a socialite.Indeed we must all agree that thenext time one of these celebrity sizezero’s is awarded community servicefor a minor misdemeanour, it shouldbe 23 days in a UK hospital, then wecan trade places with her quitehappily, knowing that she will bemade to pay for her crime. The onlydownside may be that the GMCwould have something to say aboutthe videos, sure to appear on theinternet, featuring our celebrityguests performing PR examinations.While the cream of British healthcaregoes state-side to show them howdebauchery should be done.

Wagglemag | Health & Sickness | I ssue 1 | February 2008

...contact lens flyingaerodynamically into thepatients open abdomen

It’s about trippingover the urine bag at

a cardiac arrest

The career advice shouldn’tbe get three A’s at A Level then

head off to medical school.It should be instead getskimpy short skirts, do

your lippy and be a chick

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Celebrity “IT” doctors