DR OLIVER GALGUT

CARDIOLOGY CLINICAL FELLOW Jersey General Hospital

After finishing A Levels, I spent a year working in the admissions office at Mill Hill and then studied medicine at the University of Southampton. I then moved to Birmingham working as a doctor in two hospitals and at a GP practice.

The last six months have been defined by change. In December I went from easy access to resources working in a hospital to being at the mercy of outpatient waiting lists in GP land. Then in February I went from face-toface consultation to telephone only consultations. In April I was meant to move to a cardiology job in Solihull Hospital, but was redeployed to up working on the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham.

It was very much a trial by fire in a unit running at something approaching triple capacity. Fortunately the department was a welcoming and supportive one, with excellent support from senior trainees and consultants. There was also great camaraderie among the junior members of the team, fostered by the rota which kept the same juniors together for the entire time they were working on ICU.

I really enjoyed my time here, I got to work with a tight knit team of varied professionals, I was learning new skills, and getting a deep insight into Intensive Care Medicine (ICM). Even at our busiest the team were keen to teach and develop our skills.

As things were dying down in Birmingham, I moved to Jersey to start a whole new job as the Cardiology Clinical Fellow. I’ve only been in the job for two weeks, so I don’t have much to say! I would, however, recommend it to any doctors thinking of taking time out, or even as an elective location for medical students.

Was there anything they could have done better or were you impressed by how they handled it?

I’m not sure this is the place to fully dissect what did or did not happen, nor what should or should not have happened, but I can say the contrast with the response in Jersey is stark.

If you want to see how the response in the UK could have been/should become, check out their coronavirus information page.

Did you experience lockdown and if so, to what extent? How did that impact your work?

I did not get the full experience of lockdown – I was at work 44 hours a week and half of those hours were overnight. This meant I spent most of my down time asleep, watching TV, or reading, which is what I would have been doing anyway. The main differences I did notice were how quiet my cycle commute became and how difficult it was to get hold of pasta.

What was the hardest or most frustrating part of your job?

The most difficult part for me was the rota. The unit ran an emergency rota which consisted of three days on followed by three days off then three night shifts followed by a further three days off, and then everything repeats.

That might sound ok (particularly with three days off between each set of shifts), but the frequent changes into and out of night shifts makes it difficult to sleep at any time and deeply damages the quality of any sleep you do get. This leads to accumulating fatigue – which I still think I’m getting over, even three months after it stopped.

How do you think the country coped with the Pandemic? Poorly.

Are you keen to return to life the way it was before the Pandemic, or have you reconsidered a change in your lifestyle or even career as a result of it?

Two main things come to mind. Firstly this (and the big B-word) have really highlighted how much I took for granted foreign travel, when this is all over maybe I’ll get a bit more travelling under my belt. Secondly, I really enjoy ICM – I was always considering a career in ICM, but I think it has definitely became a primary goal. And I will definitely be looking to get more exposure to critically ill patients in the near future.

Has anything positive come out of the Pandemic?

Hard to know now, but I really hope that the idea that you shouldn’t be in work if you’re ill (crazy we have to remind ourselves of this). And that we should all have paid sick leave (to encourage the former). And that robust public services are built in good times ready for bad times, not constructed or reconfigured on the fly.

When do you see things returning to ‘normal’? Or do you think they never will? Fortunately, no family members had Covid-19, nor did any have serious financial problems – in fact, my brother has got a new job out of it! The biggest impact I’ve felt is cancelled summer plans. Jersey takes quarantining new arrivals very seriously so I’m having some trouble getting off island to see loved ones, but I’m aware it could have been so much worse.

I’m not 100% sure we will return back to normal, but any normal we do end up at will probably happen after the coming winter (at the very earliest).

Anything else you’d like to share with us about your experiences? Wash your hands!