Let’s do this together

It’s the Careers Fair at school next week, and The Dark Lord has signed up to do several NHS workshops after we read through a list of medical job descriptions together.

She thinks she might do something in the field of medicine, but this obviously very much depends on her actually attending lessons every day and passing every single exam between now and 2030.

“People don’t want to be operated on by a surgeon who bunked off biology one week – and doesn’t know where the gallbladder is,” I told her in my don’t-get-your-hopes-up voice.

She took this quite seriously.

“Oooh no, I don’t want to be a surgeon – I’d be far too anxious with a scalpel,” she said with a shiver. I read out the list of other available senior jobs. “There’s also GP, consultant… oh and anaesthetist. That job requires a God complex, so you’d be perfect for it.”

I continued: “It says here there are 29 different specialities to study such as infectious diseases, neurology or even exercise medicine. Although as you’ve failed to bring your PE kit into school for 10 years, perhaps give that one a miss.”

I put the forms down and asked her what she was interested in.

“Do you actually want to help heal seriously sick people? Because I don’t think just having hypochondria qualifies you to be a doctor.”

She wrinkled her nose and started listing all her phobias: “Well, the thing is I don’t really like the smell of skin… or hair…”

I interrupted her: “You’re going to struggle dealing with patients then, especially the scabby, shedding, scrofulous types. How about something less stressful?”

She nodded and I listed some of the 15 health professional roles.

“Like physiotherapist, podiatrist…”

“Ugh, not feet,” she interrupted.

“…or prosthetist,” I continued.

“What’s a prosthetist?”

“Someone who fits fake limbs.”

“I could do that?” she said hopefully.

“So you don’t want to deal with live human hair, skin or feet,” I said, sighing. “How about something in a nice dark laboratory with only warm petri dishes for company?”

She nodded as she thought about it, then added: “I’m clumsy, though. I’d be terrified about dropping test tubes and creating a man-made disaster.”

I was just about to accuse her of watching too many conspiracy theories on YouTube, when I suddenly remembered Wuhan and Covid 19.

“OK, how about a nice fatcat job as an NHS manager, then?”

“Sounds good, what do I do?”

“All you need is a rubbish degree in hair plaiting or something to get on the NHS General Management graduate scheme, then you spend the rest of your overpaid career undermining frontline staff and getting above-inflation bonuses.”

She laughed: “Where do I sign?”

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