Last ALONE day...

What a bizarre thought.

While seeing patients today I realized it was my last day to be seeing patients on my own.

As of tomorrow, there is a clinical officer coming to work with me in the OPC.

Don’t get me wrong; it is great to have help in the clinic and that she can carry on for a few weeks after I've left.

But it does feel a little strange.

I worked on my own for the first 2 years.

Seeing around 60 patients on my own (how did I do that???)

I was desperate for help to come.

I then had a good 1 1/2 years with various doctors helping out.

Yeah for two clinicians in the clinic!

It made the work more bearable and made it possible to be more social!

But for the past few months (since end January) I was on my own again.

The change from two clinicians back to one was big.

I was not used to the pace I was working back in 2006.

I couldn’t go back to seeing 60 a day.

It seemed crazy to run myself to the ground like that again.

Instead I decided I would see around 40 per day, often ending up being around 45.

Still long days but I was satisfied that a good number of children were being seen.

Today again was crazy and chaotic but I again saw 42 children so it was worth the craziness.

Tomorrow I will introduce a new colleague to the work here.

And once the new clinical officer is up to speed we’ll increase our numbers again…