Had a bad day?

Everyone experiences a bad day at work.  You’re doing your thing and suddenly you committed a mistake and everything seems wrong already. Much worse is if it happened on a Monday. Oh you just wished its Friday already. Well, things happen. As I quote from the movie Forrest Gump, “Sh*t happens!”. For us Med Teks, we must be able to adapt quickly since we are working in a fast-paced environment. It’s hard to break down in front of a lot work especially when a life of another person may be involved.

I would like share to you my personal tips that might be a bit of help when you encounter a bad day. You don’t really have much of a choice if you have these kinda days so you might as well do something about it and move on. Here’s what I think:

Relax. This would probably be the best tip I can give. When there’s an earthquake, fire or any disaster you can think of, everyone would tell you not to panic. They’re right. Same when you have a bad day at work. People tend to get irritated and frustrated. Just ease up and relax. When you miss your blood extraction of the day, you get discouraged and you feel that you don’t want to extract anymore. Again, relax. Call the next patient and extract again.

Take a minute. We never had the time to just pause for a while. But the truth is, we need it. I guess sometimes we have a bad day because we’re just so tired and so stressed out. I remember one time, I could not make good paraffin ribbons, I was not sure why but I just couldn’t. I stepped out of the room for a minute, went back in and finished my job. I think it would not hurt if we just relax for a moment, take a deep breath and have a break. I don’t think a few minutes would hurt especially if it can improve the outcome of your work.

Just do your thing.  It doesn’t matter if you have failed extractions, long lines of patients, countless urine specimen to analyze or numerous platelet counts to check from dengue patients, all you have to do is continue on what you do. Remember, just relax, take a minute if you have to, then work again. Don’t let the “toxicity” get the best of you. The flow of your work is continuous, patients will come and go, lab exams and lab works will continue to pile up or mellow down. It is unending. So just take the heat of the moment and do your thing.


Funny but true quotes that my fellow Med Teks have shared:
"Relaks lang, lamang tayo!"

"Ayos lang yan, may bukas pa naman e!"

"Ayoko na, endorse ko na 'to..."

"2pm na ba? 6am-2pm lang ako e..."

"Napagod ako, babawi ako mamaya... kakain ako ng madami!"

"Ang toxic! Inuman na 'to mamaya!"

(Disclaimer: The author of this blog does not endorse any quotes aforementioned. Although, I do believe it is quite funny.)

Share to all Med Teks, health professionals and to those who are having a bad day!

Please comment or share your experience. Thank you and God bless!

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