Gemma Scott – The Flying Scotts

Working Life

I had initially planned to write a short blogpost on medical life in New Zealand a couple of months ago but never really got round to it. Since arriving in Auckland almost 6months ago (yes, really that long ago already!) I have rotated through 3 different jobs in 3 separate hospitals.

My first 3 months were spent in Auckland City Hospital working as an orthopaedic house officer. I found the first couple of days pretty stressful and initially found myself wondering what the hell I had done moving here! Fortunately it didn’t take too long to get used to the system and I found myself settling in quite quickly. It was nice to have Rosemary and Katrina (two other Brits) around as they started at the same time as me and we all had pretty similar fears / doubts / thoughts in the first few weeks and so it was nice to be able to share that with them. In the end I was quite sad to leave orthopaedics, mainly because of the great people that I worked with. However, if I am entirely honest, I did find the job somewhat boring (paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork) and it made me realise that it was probably time for me to step up and apply for a registrar post. After much debate I eventually put in my application to work as an A&E registrar, and shortly after was offered a job working in Middlemore Hospital.

Before moving to Middlemore as an A&E registrar I had to spend 4 weeks working as a house officer in Geriatric Rehabilitation in North Shore Hospital. The commute was a royal pain in the ass and although the ward team were lovely, this job made me realise that I don’t have the patience for 5 hour ward rounds / ward work!

I have now been working as an Emergency Medicine registrar for about 1 month and am absolutely loving it. I feel that I have so much to learn and it can be quite daunting at times; however, every day brings something new and this is probably the only specialty I can say that I get genuine enjoyment from. Let’s see how the next few months go!

Kiwi Birthday

It was a little weird spending my birthday so far away from loved ones but my family and friends, both old and new, made sure that my first Kiwi birthday was one to remember.

Unfortunately as I had to work there was still no change to the 5am alarm clock! After waking up I opened my card from Chris to find out that he had booked us a weekend away in the Bay of Islands and a boat trip to see some wild dolphins – literally a childhood dream come true! I then had a very brief Skype call with mum and Mike … cue the first tears of the day. The second tears of the day came when I found out that they had organised a cake to be delivered to me…. just as good as I’m still waiting on the cake that Chris promised to make and I’m writing this almost 2 weeks later! The cake was delivered to my work as the delivery man wasn’t keen on leaving the cake on the doorstep with all the ants – now that’s service for you! The nurses on the ward all sang happy birthday and we tucked in to the rather delicious cake pictured below.

birthdaycake

After work I headed down to the SkyTower with Chris and two friends from work, Katrina and Rosemary. We ate dinner in a revolving restaurant at the top of the sky tower with an amazing view over the city (when the clouds cleared enough to see!). I thoroughly enjoyed myself but you’ll have to ask Chris what he thought of the vertigo-inducing meal!

After dinner we headed to Giapos for what must be the most amazing ice cream in the city! The picture below doesn’t really do them any justice.

A big thank you to all my family and friends for their birthday wishes….although I was feeling pretty home sick it turned out to be quite a good day!

Race Time

A little late, but I thought I’d share with you my first taste of racing in New Zealand…..Somehow racing the Panasonic triathlon after a 3months absence from riding my bike and after a set of 7night shifts turned out to be quite enjoyable. The race took place at Mission Bay, a 30min drive from our house. It was a lovely calm morning when we arrived at the beach and we were treated to a lovely sunrise while setting up my spot in transition.

I was a bit unsure about whether or not to wear a wetsuit as it didn’t really seem worth it for 500m but I changed my mind once I saw that everyone else was wearing one. I probably should have stuck to my instincts as I struggled to get it off in transition and probably wasted more time peeling myself out of it than I saved by wearing it!

I managed to exit the water as first individual female and then made my way out on the bike course. As mentioned previously, I haven’t ridden my bike for the past 3 months so I was expecting to lose quite a lot of time to the other girls! There was a LOT of drafting going on with some huge packs forming. Determined not to be part of it I would drop back when overtaken by a pack, or sometimes try and overtake the packs (with little success!). It was quite frustrating to see other girls freewheeling behind a pack of guys and going at the exact same pace as me!! It wasn’t until after the race that I learned that it was actually a draft legal race and that I should have just sat in with the packs and use them to my advantage! That will teach me to listen to the briefing next time!! Despite my lack of bike fitness and solo ride, I managed to average 36.1km/hr over the 20km and posted the 5th fastest female bike split.

I definitely paid for the tough ride during the run and really struggled to find my legs. I managed to lose 5minutes on the run to the fastest runner, which was a little frustrating, but not unexpected given my lack of preparation.

I ended up finishing 4th in my age group and 6th overall. According to the results the 3rd place in my age group was only 4 seconds ahead of me – a little strange as there definitely wasn’t anybody right infront of me on the finish line! I was 3minutes behind the overall winner, an encouraging thought as I’m fairly confident that I could knock off 3minutes once I get some fitness back.

It was great to get back in the saddle and get a taste of the sport I love in this beautiful country…..next time though I’ll be much fitter! It is the end of season now so I have plenty of time to get my fitness back over winter.

Easter Travels

After a tiring few weeks at work, we decided to make the most of the Easter long weekend and headed south to Lake Taupo. We set off from Titirangi on Friday afternoon and drove the 300km down to the Motuoapa Bay campsite on the south east end of Lake Taupo. We pitched our tent close to the lake and after getting eaten alive by all the bugs decided to hide in the tent and read our New Zealand travel book (thanks Mum!) and make some plans for the weekend.

On the Saturday morning we got up early and were greeted by grey clouds and pissing rain – standard camping trip for us! Fortunately the rain disappeared as we headed 40km north to the town of Taupo. Our first stop was at the Huka Falls on the Waikato river. Although the falls are a lot smaller than High Force back in the UK, the colours of the river were spectacular and it was definitely worth a visit.

After the Huka falls, we headed to the nearby ‘Craters of the Moon‘, an impressive geothermal area with lots a large craters and steaming mud. We were quite hungry after all our exploring and so headed into Taupo to get some food. We ate (far too much as usual) at a lovely little Cafe down by the waterfront and then did a wee bit of shopping in order to buy some hiking clothes in preparation for Sunday’s expedition.

Sunday morning was another early start as we got ready to do the famous ‘Tongariro crossing‘. We drove to the finish of the track and met with Rosemary and Katrina, two of my friends from work, before catching the shuttle bus to the start of the hike. Initially we were a bit sceptical about doing the walk as the weather looked quite poor, but we are both glad that we went ahead with the hike as it actually turned out to be a beautiful day. The Tongariro crossing is said to be the ‘best one day hike in New Zealand’ and we can certainly see how it has earned that reputation. In general the hike is not particularly technical and the views are simply stunning. Particular highlights include the views of some active volcanos (including the famous ‘Mt Doom’) and the Emerald Lakes. The hike was approximately 20km in total – it is safe to say that we have definately earned our easter eggs this weekend!

See below for some more pictures of the weekend.

Gem arrives in Auckland

After three weeks of living out of a suitcase and reminding mum what it was like to have my mess scattered all over the house it was finally time for me to head out to Auckland to join Chris.

I was really pleased that Mike was fit enough to join me and mum on our trip to the airport, it meant a lot to me. I had been dreading saying goodbye for weeks and it was just as difficult as I had expected. I was really lucky to have Chris’ mum and dad come to the airport to see me off too, and to be honest, it made the goodbyes a little bit easier as they stayed with me for a bit after mum and Mike left. I will have to take Chris’ mum to the airport more often as she made for the easiest trip through airport security I have ever had – we were chatting for so long that I was the final person of the day to go through security and they were all waiting for me!! Thankfully there was still plenty of time before the plane was called for boarding.

After 3 flights and over 24 hours of travelling I finally made it to the other side of the world. I caught the SkyBus into town and met Chris outside his work. We then caught another bus which took us to our beautiful house in Titirangi. There was even some Lindt chocolate waiting for me in the fridge – thanks Chris! We had a wee walk to the shop to get an ice-cream and had a chat with our neighbour, Steve, who seems really friendly. After all my travelling I was desperate to get some sleep and managed to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow! Unfortunately the sleep was short-lived as Chris managed to press the ‘PANIC ALARM’ next to the bed, which looks exactly like a light switch!!

The picture below shows the sunrise, as viewed from our spare bedroom. Taking bookings now!