jocundasykes

Medics will acknowledge that a senior doctor is nothing without his secretary. My father had a secret button under his desk to get his secretary to come in and pull him away from annoying people that won’t leave his office. My dad’s secretary babysat me. And I also know how hard it is to write letters of resignation, and the family that you make at a hospital.

That’s not to say that doctors and nurses are all nice people. When one applies to be a medical doctor, you write all sorts of things about what a lovely sacrificial individual you are, convincing interviewers of your selflessness. But doctors aren’t angels. You don’t have to be a pleasant person to know what to try first when a patient presents with certain symptoms, because you’ve memorised an algorithm from years of training, experience, conferences, case reports in journals. And you go through those motions to help people get better, selflessness is very hard to find. Egos are huge, and everyone is so very tired.

The more senior you are, the worse your handwriting is. I’ve been to a conference in Baltimore and never again. There’ll be some medical readers who’ll recognise Avoidable Deaths Reports. Complaints. Audit reports. Mortality reports. Steering groups. Adverts from pharma companies. Training the newbies. Her Majesty’s Department of Health, and the Care Quality Commission coming to inspect you. Dunno on what planet anyone has the time to read journals. Somehow you’ve got to slot in seeing patients.

Draco’s Dict-a-Quill is still how we write letters today, and in many of the filing cabinets you can still find the old cassettes. The wizarding world has better gender equality, with Umbridge and Madam Bones and Hermione rising up the ranks, but in the NHS there are still very very few men in administrative roles, and so Shaun was an obvious choice. It’s bittersweet when women go on maternity leave, as it takes months to replace anyone, and you just have to pick up the slack. Putting Penny on mat leave was just another straw on the camel’s back. Sorry, Draco.

I didn’t mean to vilify Penelope Clearwater. But in reality when you write to a doctor, you are one of thirty letters, they’ve been at a conference for four days, and return and need to prioritise prescriptions and the patients physically in front of them. Then they dictate a reply, but now their secretary’s on their hols and then off sick. And the other secretaries can’t cover—not enough staff! So you might feel ignored, but it’s just admin and workload in the way. Though it may look that way, I didn’t intend to portray Penny as work-shy or incapable, but rather working her contracted hours, doing her best, and going home. Versus Draco, who is a workaholic who won’t delegate. It’s also normal practice for doctors to not interfere with patients who are under the care of other physicians—they don’t have the time, don’t want to give contradictory advice/muck up the care plan, and frankly the patient doesn’t always come first.

I also identify with wanting to do something yourself, because in the time it takes for you to delegate, check and then correct the work, you might as well have done it yourself. And I put Draco in a position where he feels he can’t make any mistakes because of his guilt and atonement arc.

Sorry again, Draco.