Sunday 21 August 2016

A quandary

So, things have finally come to a head at work.

My boss has been struggling since she returned in February last year from a year off work due to breast cancer. Her consultant colleagues do not seem to have a drop of compassion in their bones - funny really when you look at the speciality they work in and the types of patients they have to deal with every day.

We have employed two new consultants - one to replace someone who has just retired and another due to the increasing workload - this takes our consultant number to 5. The agreement for the 5th consultant was that they would be part H&T - our speciality.

In reality this is not going to happen. The other 4 have had a pre-meeting prior to the official meeting yesterday and they have basically ganged up on my boss and told her that she needs to just carry on with her work. The workload is unmanageable and to top it all, we have recently lost our secretary due to the other secretaries ganging up on her because she worked for our boss who "wasn't really a haematology consultant as she doesn't do malignancy!" So, between the two of us we have also taken on secretarial work which has me working most days 12 hour shifts and at least 6 on a  Saturday - I am like a walking zombie this evening!

After yesterday's meeting, my boss just text me and said that she would be looking for a new job and was at that point looking at the commute to one of the larger hospitals not far from us.

I knew from that short text, how that meeting had gone - badly.

My boss has said that when she leaves, wherever she ends up, she will make me a part of her package - she does not want to leave me behind. That makes me feel wanted as I can see the nightmare that will await me if it is just me as the other consultants really have no idea at all about H&T and we run even more specialised clinics with pregnant women in too - I dread to think what will happen there!

However, the problem I see at both of the bigger Trusts near us, is that the already have specialist nurses who do my job - because we are a small district general, I am doing 3 roles in one - the other Trusts have a nurse (even a team of nurses) for each of my roles and I am not sure how I would fit in.

The smaller of the two Trusts is the longest commute - do I really want to either drive an 80 mile round trip 5 days per week or travel on the train for 2 hours each day? The larger of the two Trusts is where I trained and then worked for a further 13 years prior to moving to the Trust where I am now. I'm not sure I really want to go back there.

That puts me in a quandary - do I stay where I know it will be unbearable - or do I go with the boss to a new world?

Watch this space - I think it may cause some fraught discussions at home as well!!