Doesn’t time fly... and all that?I can probably skip over the week after the gig. Rapidly. Fairly busy at work, and I’ve never liked coming home from a holiday. Plus a cold that wouldn’t come out and wouldn’t go away.
So the next big thing was teaching on an EMST course. That’s ATLS to the rest of the world. Only 9½ yrs since first being asked to be an instructor, but I’d always been too junior. (Felt a bit like always being too young for the DofE at school.)
Anyway. After several days preparing the lectures, and being slightly unsure exactly how the whole thing was going to differ from the course back home.
I flew to Brisbane on Thursday evening – thankfully, considering I had left work after 0100 on Thursday morning and back into work for 10 the same day, Brisbane is a whole 30 minutes behind Adelaide. At leaast that was what I was telling myself to make me feel better. A 2 hour flight, I got to the hotel at 10. It was so much more humid.
The course started Friday, with a faculty meeting at 7:15. The hotel reckoned it was either 20 minutes, or 3km to walk to the hospital so I left at 6:30, not wanting to take any chances. Given that the hospital was the big building on the hill I could see as soon as I walked out of the hotel... (see photo above - hospital on teh extremem right) Anyway I stopped at Hungry Jacks (aka Burger King) for coffee. I’ve obviously discovered where you go in Australia to find men.
It turns out the course is pretty similar to ours. There was one other ED doc teaching, the rest were all surgeons. (I gather it is unusual to have that many). The candidates were mostly surgical and GP trainees with one (brave) physician. Bizarrely ED trainees don’t have to do it.
The days were long. In the first demonstration (how not to do it) I was the victim – theatrical make-up and fake broken bones, drunk and abusive (I love playing that part). I had to die. I survived the second time round. The lectures went fine – after all the stressing about how to fit the material into the time .
The course dinner was Friday night at a (-n apparently famous) rugby club. So famous I can't remember the name. The after dinner speaker was a fascinating anaesthetist (no jokes about oxymorons) who had done mountain rescue in South Africa. Proper mountains, hanging from 30 year old helicopters (and taking photos) in minus 10 degrees. Amazing.
Next morning wasn’t quite such an early start, in fact a couple of us were given an hour off while the surgical skills were taught. There was a big thing about how this “wasn’t an animal lab”, which is very rare here. I have never done a course where there are live, anaesthetised animals. I’m glad.
Saturday afternoon was spent in the blazing heat, lying wedged half under a rubbish skip in a very dusty loading bay. While groups of candidates tried to pull me out, roll me out, carry me out (less of the jokes about weight reduction surgery, thank you, you weaklings). And by the time we’d done it four times, I was having great fun arguing with Amanda (who had “run me over”, “followed me”, “been stalking me” etc etc). It was all videoed so that the final session on Sunday was a prizegiving and lets-all-have-a-laugh clips show.
Obviously we had to eat on Saturday night, too so it was the faculty dinner. In a posh (at least the restaurant thought it was) restaurant on the pier. Nice fish, shame they forgot to cook my order. So time to drink lots of wine. Then five of us went on to another bar. It was about 1:20 when I looked at the clock as I staggered in after an interesting taxi ride, with a driver who swore he knew where he was going. So much so that he drove past two hotels, and only managed to get to the front entrance of my hotel after a lot of yelling (and a very high speed U-turn).
The course finished Sunday, and for once I was not involved in scenario testing, but invigilating the exam (or reading yesterday’s paper – call it what you will), and doing one of the discussions. After the prizegiving for the extrication exercise, the course was over. To be honest I nearly blew the instructor thing. I’d been seen drinking water when we went out Saturday night. I’ll know next time.
Anyway, I had a couple of hours to kill before the plane in the evening so I went into town. Luckily Vijey was going through town so I got a lift in. Most of the shops in the centre were open, but I was carrying my bags and a very heavy manual and after finding a train timetable (no useful buses from the bus station, but a very handy transport information booth) I wandered over to the museum. Mainly because I knew I’d find a bag-drop for an hour or so. Strange place. Lots of exhibits set out for children (you are this big, a kangaroo is this big), and then a tiny corner where a case of Pacific island artefacts were next to some Etruscan ones, between a case of old bottles from a landfill site and someone’s private collection of Staffordshire pottery. And all next to the stuffed animals. Upstairs was a bit of an exhibition about the Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders which was interesting but a tad repetitious, then downstairs were Queensland Icons (a surfer and some XXXX), and a display on “How we Move Around.” There were two old planes and a fire engine. And a lot of empty space. I’d better not get asked to review the museum for the local rag. Don’t think I’d get paid.
After that it was back out into the grey, hot humidity and I walked along the South bank (closed for construction mostly) with its tiny patch of tropical garden and Vietnamese pagoda, then through the Uni to the Botanic gardens (= Park) and it was time to get the train. Thankfully as we got to the Airport, there was a slight breeze and it got slightly less muggy. Still tired, plus hungover, all I wanted to do was sleep on the plane. Opposite me, however, was Kev. A very loud, not especially bright, brickie who was on his way to work in Wagga via Adelaide with his group of mates, who almost invited the whole plane out drinking on Hindley St that night and, by the time we were waiting to disembark, was trying to sell his mate Andrew to the highest bidder. (At that stage we knew Andrew’s entire life history, propensity to get airsick etc.).
I was home and in bed less than an hour after the plane landed.
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