Am I being too sensitive?

I want to receive your feedback about my current job in the ER a tertiary hospital. I've been there for a little over a month. I have scheduled two 24hr and six 19hr shifts on top of the regular schedule. The experience has been extremely tough and my initial plan was to stay until September 30 for two reasons:

  1. I’m learning a lot here, more than anywhere else before, and that’s helping me with my MIR exam preparation.
  2. I’m saving a lot of money in a short period of time.

But the environment is toxic and hostile, and every day it’s getting harder. Here’s what’s been happening:

  • Every morning, there are meetings to discuss the number of patients seen. The manager comes almost every day for the same reason and to take photos.
  • During almost every shift, they ask me how many patients I’m seeing, or even call the consultation room at 5-6 a.m. just to check if I’m awake.
  • The head of the department publicly says that the last 4-5 doctors hired (including me) are slower and less effective, even though we haven’t received proper training courses.
  • My coworkers have been hostile since the day I defended myself: they scolded me for going to lunch without asking them first, and I replied that when I’m in CAR (another ER section), nobody asks me if I want to eat. Since then, I’ve become their “target.”
  • Yesterday, for instance, they left me about 8 follow-up patients to review and claimed I was seeing too few patients, while they bragged about seeing 9 patients in just 4 hours (which I highly doubt for the simple reason that nurses hadn't provided the files of the patients pending to be seen).
  • Nurses disregard my medical orders: I told them about 10 times not to place a reservoir on a cystic fibrosis patient yesterday, yet they did it because “a senior doctor” said so. That leaves me legally exposed.
  • Sometimes they lie, saying they “didn’t know where I was,” even though I always work in the same spot (I don’t sit with them because it’s noisy, and the phone rings constantly).
  • When I said goodbye this morning, nobody even replied.

On top of that, the shifts are brutal:

  • The 24-hour shifts are completely sleepless. After yesterday's shift, I feel drunk, staggering, like a hangover (and I don't even drink).
  • They tell me I need to talk to them before going to lunch “so the ER isn’t left unattended,” but they don’t do the same for me (it's not all but a few do this)
  • I rarely leave on time; I almost always finish much later than scheduled.

I feel like I’ve already been labeled as “the target,” and nothing I do will change that perception. I’m mentally and physically exhausted. My plan was to stay until late September to save money and strengthen my clinical knowledge before focusing fully on MIR prep, but I’m not sure if sacrificing my mental and physical health is worth it.

What would you do? Should I stay until September or leave now, maybe by the end of July?

Posted Jul 19, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

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