Diary of a Junior Doctor reveals gut punching truths about working in a hospital, writes advisor Emma Wehipeihana.
We played this game, as first year junior doctors at Middlemore Hospital – how long could you go before the job made you cry. Hours? Days? Weeks?
Then we added layers. Did you embarrass yourself in public, or did you make it to your car/the toilet/a stairwell where you could cry in private? Did you pick yourself up and carry on, or did you have to go home? We collected these stories. Saying the hard stuff out loud gave the trauma a different form; a nidus for connection. If we all went through it, we couldn’t be alone.
Me? Three weeks, two days. The toilets on ward 34 East. The reason? Redacted.
Shadie, the youngest doctor in the new TVNZ series Diary of a Junior Doctor, makes it to her car after her first 14 hour “long day” shift before she sobs into the camera. When I watched the episode, I found myself nodding approvingly – good on her, she had her emotional breakdown at the end of her workday, in private.
When the idea for this series was proposed by the production company Storymaker, I immediately wanted to be involved – just not on screen. I’d grown up (as a doctor) at Middlemore, but after a book and a podcast and all those bloody opinion pieces I really felt that nobody needed to hear anything else about my journey to becoming a doctor. I got the privilege of working behind the scenes as an advisor instead.
This series, which follows five young doctors working in different specialties at Middlemore Hospital, is the epitome of show, don’t tell. There’s so much noise in the media about the state of the health system that you could be forgiven for thinking that this might be a politically-charged declaration of war against the State for not properly looking after patients, or health professionals, or our crumbling infrastructure. It’s not that.
Instead, you will walk alongside each of these junior doctors as they find a place to call home in the profession they (we) dreamed about entering. As you’ll see, the dream takes some adjusting to.
It’s the work, sure. The anxiety, the workload, the terrifyingly vulnerable patients who are suddenly your responsibility. All of that, and more, makes for great TV. I was particularly moved by the generosity of the patients who gave their consent for their stories to be told. Their candour is an interesting juxtaposition to our current environment, where health professionals are being encouraged to say less publicly to advocate for our patients and simply work harder, focus on our KPIs.
But what hits you in the guts is the impact on our junior doctors’ lives outside of the hospital. Viewers will follow our doctors to and from work, through significant life events that are assaulted by the ever present cognitive and emotional load of working as a doctor. Quite different from the controlled environment of medical school, you watch as it dawns on the junior doctors that their decisions now have real consequences. Those consequences don’t stay in the hospital at the end of the day; they go home with you to your spouse, partner, parents, and children. You’re never really not at work, mentally.
As you progress throughout your career as a doctor, you gain increasing responsibility – not just for patients but for the students and more junior doctors on your team. Almost as soon as you learn something, you’re expected to teach it. You’re always managing relationships in four directions; your patients, your bosses, your colleagues, your juniors. For myself, as difficult as it is to face my own challenges, it’s even harder to watch others go through the stressors of working as a doctor in Aotearoa.
I had a semi-public cry when I watched the first episode of this series with the production team. Everyone is trying so damn hard to do the right thing to give patients the care they deserve, too often at the expense of their own wellbeing. I didn’t mind breaking my no-tears-at-work rule for them.
Watch Diary of a Junior Doctor tonight at 7.30pm on TVNZ1 or on TVNZ+.
