A Family Doctor's Tale - MEDICAL LOCUM

 MEDICAL LOCUM

The compulsory 1 year houseman internship was over. 
I have become a fully qualified medical doctor which also means a yearly registration fee of $25. This fee of $25 per year was cheap compared to the present $600 registration for 2 years. 

My wife and I had a beautiful baby girl halfway through my houseman internship. We were married after her graduation from a teaching diploma and after she started work in a school. 

With our beautiful child at our side, I was very interested in becoming a pediatrician.( child specialist).
I have always been interested in children diseases and development having learned from one of the best Pediatric Professor in the world. 
He was not only dedicated to his work and his teaching, taking the trouble to do a teaching conference every Saturday morning. His conference notes on Saturdays alone were as large as the Britanica encyclopedia. 

He was also the Director of the postgraduate school of Medicine.
Unfortunately the limited amount of traineeships were given to the older medical officers.

I have a choice of staying in the public hospitals or leaving for private family practice.

Although my wife and I have discussed about opening a family practice, we felt that I need to have more experience in dealing with patients outside the hospital context. 
In addition we felt that we need to build up our finances before starting up a new family practice clinic.

So I applied to be a  medical locum ( a temporary replacement doctor for any private doctor who may need to go for a holiday). I was lucky to almost immediately get work in a small run down family clinic in one of the satellite town. 
The sole medical doctor had to leave to attend to a family matter for 3 months in India. 
He could not pay me a fixed salary but was willing to pay me 70% of the profits.

I was to take charge of the whole clinic including ordering of the medicines, seeing the patients, paying the single clinic assistant, keeping the medical records and accounts of the clinic. 
The clinic key will be held by the clinic assistant. 
It was a perfect experience for me. 
It was like running my own clinic without the risks and learning all about how to run a family clinic. 
Work was from 9am to 12.30pm from Mondays to Saturdays and 2pm to 5pm on Mondays to Fridays. 
Sundays and public holidays were excluded.
There was no night duty so I have some time to spend with my family.

I felt that even though it was a small practice, it was a good learning experience and if I do well I may be able to get more money than a fixed salary. I was to submit an account to the doctor every month with income and expenses signed by the clinic assistant and the doctor will send me a cheque for the 70% of the profits.
It was because of this many other locum doctors had turned down his offer as they preferred a fixed salary and also did not like his rundown little clinic.

I was not so particular as I felt that if a doctor is good he should be able to work any where. Money was not everything to me.
The best thing was that after 1 year of hectic hospital work, there was definitely more time to spend with my wife and child.


So after a rest of 2 weeks, I started work in this small run down family clinic.