For Amy, being a doctor was supposed to mean winning at life. Helping people. Saving lives. Having a secure job. Earning good money. Tick, tick, tick, tick. But now, in her second year in a city hospital the reality is a world away from Amy’s med school dreams. She is finding out that people don’t always want to be ‘helped’, the pay barely covers rent, her hours are ridiculous, her favourite patients are getting sicker, and her surgical trainee boyfriend has recently gone shy on proposing.
What Amy does have are the friendships forged by dealing with recalcitrant patients, endless nightshifts, and crying in the emergency department bathrooms. And a belief that maybe, underneath it all, it’s a job that’s still worth doing.
In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Kerry Jewell about giving the reader the complete hospital/medical training experience, why the idea of being a doctor isn’t necessarily the reality, and how cynicism, sarcasm and black humour are all part of the job.
