Christmas, a time for giving and receiving, or of course, for night shifts. Christmas is a lovely time of the year to be working in a hospital – the joy of getting up and going to work in the darkness, working all day under strip lighting and then going home in the dark … it’s a wonder we don’t all get osteomalacia!! Hooray for seasonal affective disorder!

In truth there is a certain pleasurable gallows humour around the hospital – already the plans for a Christmas Day breakfast uniting the medical and surgical teams after nights have arisen. We may do battle all night but in the morning we’ll eat together and then we’ll go and play football on no man’s land (just next to the renal unit).

At least the festivities of the season have taken some of the attention away from the recruitment problems that will
accompany the January sales … I hope there will be some good bargains on offer for our training!!

On a side note – good news for the over 65s this week – you don’t have to worry about the amount of alcohol you consume this holiday (Reducing the harms of alcohol in the UK. British Medical Journal, Vol. 335, December 22-29,2007, pp. 1271-72) – Just don’t overdo it and come to my A&E!!!

Merry Christmas