The long-awaited return

It's the time of year when I find myself with a lot of spare time and after exhausting all other options I return to the blogging world. Admittedly this wasn't planned and neither is it something I particularly want to do but for some reason, yet again, I'm back for some random ramblings about anything and everything. Once again I find myself in the front of the keyboard with time to kill and thoughts to express so let's see how long this return lasts.

You'll be glad to know that my time as a GP Registrar is over - I have qualified as a fully-fledged GP. Finally let loose onto the general public without any supervision. The qualification brings with it a lot of uncertainty, for the first time since I qualified, I am officially self-employed and currently without a permenant position. As a result for the next few months I am a GP nomad (or locum) working here, there and everywhere. Selling my services for an hourly rate to any surgery that needs a doctor. Thankfully demand is high and as it stands I'm fully booked upto mid-November.

Although it has only been 5 days since I qualified and started working as a locum GP, already I am seeing the benefits and why some doctors remains locums for years. My job is pure service provision, I turn up and just see patients. No paperwork, no prescription signing, no letter signing, no home visits, no telephone calls, just a morning and an afternoon surgery for a total of 5hrs and my work is done. Without going into specifics, 5hrs a day earns me enough to want this locum gig going for as long as possible.

The plan is to eventually get a permenant job as a GP partner, ideally in a practice close to home. Until that opportunity arrives, I'm more than content to carry on as a locum, scouring the job ads in the various medical journals waiting for the right job to turn up. I've already had a couple of interviews for partnerships one near the place where I trained (i.e. miles from home) and the other slightly closer. Although on both occasions I got down to the final 2-3 candidates, I was unsuccessful. Still, good experience etc etc. Good to know that my CV is up to scratch and at least I'm getting the opportunity. What the locums have afforded me is the time to make the right choice as and when it arrives.

Other than that, life remains pretty much unspectacular. Not much has happened in the past 5 months or so since I last blogged. Yet again as I restart blogging, Ramadhan is around the corner. It was 2006 when I first started this blog and Ramadhan was about to start, then again last year when I returned it was the same thing again, and now the third time I'm back just before one of the most important months in the Islamic calendar. No doubt I'll be attempting to type about some religious topics which I hope will prove insightful.

So there we go, a brief introduction back into the blogging world and hopefully there will be a lot more to come. After all, my free time has increased further. Before people start moaning about the amount of time doctors waste, using me as an example, may I remind you all that I am no longer paid for the free time. As a locum GP I am paid an hourly rate for the work I do in the morning and afternoon, no more no less, so this is now a free of charge service I am providing for you readers. Isnt' that thoughtful? How faecious of me!

Take care all,

Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?