Blog - Bubble Up
Ace Your Consultant Interview Course
Every Day Carry – Tools for work
We all have tools that we utilise each shift at work. Depending on your speciality and role these can include emergency or assessment tools, or a variety of items that can, in a pinch, be useful. Different roles within healthcare carry their moment to moment needs in different ways, be that pockets (especially scrubs!), the nursing pick-pocket, or a small over-shoulder bag. Everyday Carry (EDC) covers all of these situations. The philosophy is beautifully captured in the phrase “a good nurse carries scissors”.
Enjoy the silence… or don’t
Watching the news of cases of COVID climbing in Italy and London, I imagined Lockdown (always with a capital L, as if it were a holiday) to be a time of quiet. There would be no slow hydraulic hiss of concertina-ring bus doors. There would be no put–put–put of the clapped-out moped. I would emerge, like Cillian Murphy – minus the chiselled cheekbones – to a silent city. No people. No noise. And it would be wonderful.
Even as a consultant, I felt a (self-inflicted) pressure to work through my breaks. It didn’t feel good when I stopped for a break and everyone else was still working (especially if there were plenty of patients waiting to be seen).
Deep down, I knew all the reasons why I SHOULD have been taking breaks regularly and why it was important. I knew that not taking breaks wasn’t doing anyone any favours. It was not helping my colleagues; and it definitely was not helping the patients. And yet, I did often skip breaks.
Drawing a blank – job interview panic
I’m sitting here, in an office (pre-pandemic) with 5 people in suits staring at me. And I can’t think of a single thing to say. Not a word. Nothing is coming to me.
Except that I NEED to think of something to say. The harder I think about it the worse it gets.
I’m clearly an idiot.
And now they can all see it.
That’s it, I’ve stuffed up this interview.
I can feel the tears welling up but please please please do not let me actually cry in this interview.
Taking negative feedback like a pro
Receiving negative feedback really, really hurts. In one particularly painful experience I thought I was sitting down for a meeting with my boss to get a pat on the back and be told ‘well done on a great job Tessa!’ – but actually the meeting was to tell me that I’d done the wrong thing.
It totally threw me off guard. I was surprised, upset, confused as to how this had gone in entirely the opposite direction from the one I was expecting.
Saying No (without feeling guilty)
I used to find it really hard to say no to people. They might have been asking me to be part of a cool new project or to take on an extra teaching session, or even just to go to a social event that I did not want to go to.
I always struggled to say no. It’s so…awkward. Combined with how I really wanted to keep people happy, and I had huge FOMO that I’d be missing out on the opportunity of the century…I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I said yes. All the time.
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