Carly is a bit ’out there’. She has been a paediatrician for a long time now. She does enjoy working with children, but she finds most babies rather dull. Give her an adolescent any day. At work Carly loves to muck around. She can be idiotic, but not stupid. Sometimes this can be a problem, as of course not everyone shares her love of pranks. She feels that being silly can reduce the stress at work. It is done with grace and humour. Well, so she believes. She will often start the ward round with everyone introducing themselves. They say their name, their role and what area they are working in for the day. This bit is compulsory. Then they can say their favourite colour, or a game they liked playing as a child. This bit is optional. But most people join in and for sure it is a great ’leveller’ as the NHS is extremely hierarchical. Whether orange or blue are your favourite colours does not say anything about where you are on the pyramid. Maybe liking chartreuse could be perceived as pretentious. Carly does love this yellowy/lime green colour. She once had her front door painted this colour. Now it is purple. Anyway, Carly feels that by everyone revealing a bit about themselves they relax, and others learn a bit more about them. Sometimes Carly imposes a rule that you have to be original. Of course, this is easy for her as she starts off. Then she has to decide if they are going to go round clockwise or anticlockwise, thus scaring the person to her right or left, who will be last and might find it hard to think of an original answer. But most people enjoy this, and Carly is mindful to ensure that everyone knows that the last bit is voluntary.
These are everyday quirkinesses that most staff don’t mind. However, there are other times when Carly really does go overboard. Looking back at them she wonders when she could have stopped herself from getting so utterly carried away. Maybe she couldn’t have, and for sure, some do find it funny and really cannot see what all the fuss is about. Going forwards, Carly needs to be more mindful when it comes to choosing whom she plays her shenanigans on. Yes, that is what is needed. She considers which are the best to illustrate her point and five incidents come to mind. She will go through them from shortest to longest title. This seems as good a way as any to show others her antics.
Bra incident
This was a very long time ago. Carly sort of winces when she remembers this one. Of all the incidents, this is most well remembered. Even by those who weren’t working with Carly at the time. It is a bit like an “’annals of history’ incident. Carly remembers it very clearly. She is sure all the others who witnessed it do as well. She needed to speak to a member of the team. They were standing on the ward round outside a cubicle with the notes trolley between them. Carly sighs. Those were the days. Physical notes and writing entries by hand. Not all this running around using keyboards that are wipe clean with no keypads sticking up to make typing not only easy but actually possible. Instead, now you have to hammer away hard in order to make the letters appear on the screen. But at least there is no wasting of time reading illegible handwriting. Anyway. Carly needed to interrupt the ward round. Dianne, one of the rather officious senior nurses, pointed out gleefully that Carly was not bare below the elbows but also wearing a watch. Diane continued to reinforce this by telling Carly she was only allowed to wear short-sleeved shirts. Carly was incensed. She retorted whilst taking off her watch flamboyantly and rolling up her sleeves assertively, “Well maybe I should take my bra off then?” Which she proceeded to do. Carly was an expert at doing this internally, so nothing was revealed apart from a bra coming down her sleeve at the end. Later on, she was hauled over the coals. Luckily this wasn’t in front of any patients. But Diane was furious. And Carly’s clinical lead, Jeremy, was exasperated. He told Carly off, hoping that Carly would never do such things again. Carly sighed. She clearly wouldn’t do the bra removal incident a second time, but Carly was the sort of person who was amazing and was great a lot of the time, but at the expense of very occasionally getting it woefully wrong. Ho hum. Carly would reflect deeply on this matter and resolve all the issues in her head. She surmised that whilst she was sorry and didn’t really want to infuriate staff she had to work with, taking off her bra like that is a skill that is useful. Although it isn’t one of those transferrable skills. Well, probably not…?
Wedgie episode
During the pandemic all staff in her hospital took to wearing scrubs. This was not mandatory, and Carly was dismayed that so many people had to act like sheep and not wear interesting and individual clothes. One of the main issues is that scrubs are pretty much ’one size doesn’t fit all’. Consequently, people never really looked either comfortable or professional. So, Carly only wore them the few times she did shifts on the adult Intensive Care Unit. She thought the wearing of scrubs was just plain lazy. Fellow healthcare professionals couldn’t be bothered to think creatively about what they were going to wear each day. So, they sloped into the hospital wearing clothes that could pass as pyjamas and changed out of them into scrubs as soon as they got into work. The additional problem was for the larger man. They would often have their pants showing, especially when they bent over which happened commonly as children are small and babies even smaller. This meant Carly had had her fill of people wearing scrubs where their underpants showed. Did she really want to know that Dr X bought Calvin Klein underwear rather than Tommy Hilfiger? She would rather they saved their money and bought cheapo ones from M&S and spent the rest of their salaries on shirts and chinos. So, one day she told one of the men that if she found him again with his pants showing she would give him a wedgie. The whispering masses translated this as Carly had actually ’wedgied’ this member of staff which counts as assault. Carly had merely threatened him. But the officious ’powers –that be’ used this as a way of getting very heavy with her. And, therefore, Carly cried. Which is a commonplace event. She wishes this didn’t happen so easily. But when you get to your mid-fifties and you are still a snivelling wreck every time someone so much as gives you a look, then this isn’t going to change.
Knocking knee event
At about the same time as the wedgie episode Carly was told off for another incident. This time it had actually happened. She was working with new staff whom she wanted to feel welcome. She stood behind one new member of staff and knocked her knees gently into the back of this person’s knees. They crumpled. Only a bit. Again, the murmuring anti-Carly staff accused her of flooring this person. This wasn’t true and although some staff thought these incidents were hilarious, the top brass felt it was important to haul Carly over the coals about this too. How she cried. For England. She looked like a toad. She had to hide away for at least an hour for her facial puffiness to settle.
Bra over scrubs affair
This incident is one Carly remembers fondly. It was over a decade ago. It was meaningful as she didn’t get into trouble, but it did make her realise that she needed to move on to the next stage in her career. She was asleep and her bleep went off telling her to get to the Emergency Department Resuscitation Cubicle as soon as possible. It was probably a child with a fever having a seizure, thought Carly. This was a common occurrence and usually by the time Carly arrived it had stopped. Carly was speedy enough, but common things are common and seizures usually abate quickly. Phew thought Carly. But you cannot predict that, so she rushed along and got her badge out to allow herself into the right door. As she looked down, she realised she had put her bra on the outsides of her clothes. Phew. She caught herself. What would those parents have thought? Or the other staff members. Not appropriate for the most senior member of the team. But Carly did realise that still running to crash calls in the middle of the night in your forties is beyond the call of duty. Time to move on!
‘Sukey take it off again’ as a title for a burns lecture
Carly often taught on a course about how to teach. One of her favourite slides was about choosing a good title for your teaching session to really encourage attendance and engagement. Carly prided herself on being original. But this time she got carried away. She knew the nursey rhyme ‘Polly put the kettle on’ with the second line ‘and Sukey take it off again’. She was giving a lecture about burns and scalds. But really the jump was too enormous for those coming to the teaching session to work out what on earth was going on. The goal had to be clarity. Not a ’guess what is inside my head?!’
There are more examples, but these are the most illustrative and some have gone down in the annals of history as examples of Carly’s ‘out-there’ behaviour. Part of Carly is embarrassed but for the most part she is proud of who she is. Mostly…..
