short call
today was my short call day.
this means that i come in at 6am, pick up an overnight admission and have it worked up by 7am. then i do work rounds until 8am. then i round with the resident. at 9:15am we round with the attending. this is supposed to last til 11:15am. then you resume work. from 12:15-1pm, there is usually a noon conference with lunch served - this has been cancelled for the first few days so the interns have time to adjust. then you finish your work and sign out to night float by 5pm. then you go live your life.
so what REALLY happened was:
wake up at 3:45am. out the door and on the brooklyn train platform by 4:30am, hoping to get in a bit before 6am so i can have a cushion of extra time to work up my admission. i sweat it out in a shirt and tie in a humid and stagnant station and the train doesn't arrive until 5:05am. i get on and after a few stops realize that this 4 train isn't running express. i don't know if it's because the 4 runs local before 5:30am or something, or if i picked the wrong train, or maybe i was on the 6 (shout out to j.lo!) the entire time and didn't know it. so i actually arrived at 6:15am.
got my admission, get sign out from night float, immediately start getting pages. finally see the new patient at 6:30am. not really paying attention to time very well, and being very inefficient overall, i work on the admission until about 7:45am. then i realize i need to see the other 7 patients before 8am.
that obviously doesn't happen.
look like an ass in front of my resident (and later, my attending), because i haven't had enough time to check up labs and see all my patients - but the 3rd and 4th year student have all their data. i feel like an idiot.
attending rounds just kind of dissolves on the floor about 11am or so for some reason. we all separate and resume work. i have 8 patients on my board.
and then, somehow, i start to get the hang of it a little bit. the nurses are tough but all of them are super nice (and all of them think they're making the "OHHHHHHHH DOCTOR OHHHHHhhHHHHhhhH" joke for the very first time. some of them repeated the joke from yesterday) and they seem to like me, which is a plus. something happens. i start feeling a bit more confident. i spend a bit more time going over my orders and the patient's vitals and labs and my pager screams a bit less. i end up discharging 3 patients, gearing up 1 for discharge tomorrow, and one for a transfer. that would leave me with 3 patients (right now i'm sitting with 5).
so i didn't eat lunch again today, but i got a lot done, and signed out an hour earlier than yesterday (actually since i got in an hour early, i guess that works itself out).
tomorrow is my "pre-call" day (since i'm on overnight on saturday), so i will not be taking admissions! nice! and i'll be sending off 2 of my 5 patients. TECHNICALLY i'm supposed to be done by 3pm on fri pre-call, and it really seems like i might be able to pull it off. definitely NOT eating lunch tomorrow.
tomorrow night tv on the radio is playing in prospect park. i can't wait to pass out in the grass before they start playing and lull me to sleep with their throbbing basslines and peter-gabriel-on-heroin melodies. that's not hate, i totally feel TVOTR, but i've been averaging 4 hours of sleep a night, so i'm just sayin.
saturday morning i will move in to my apartment in the bronx (thus eliminating the million-year commute) and live out of bags and on an aerobed for a week. saturday 3pm i go in and work overnight until sunday 3pm (i get 5 admissions). monday the whole thing starts all over again.
still don't remember a damn thing about medicine. but i'm getting the hang of working the system, which is really what this is all about, anyway. see you in brooklyn.
this means that i come in at 6am, pick up an overnight admission and have it worked up by 7am. then i do work rounds until 8am. then i round with the resident. at 9:15am we round with the attending. this is supposed to last til 11:15am. then you resume work. from 12:15-1pm, there is usually a noon conference with lunch served - this has been cancelled for the first few days so the interns have time to adjust. then you finish your work and sign out to night float by 5pm. then you go live your life.
so what REALLY happened was:
wake up at 3:45am. out the door and on the brooklyn train platform by 4:30am, hoping to get in a bit before 6am so i can have a cushion of extra time to work up my admission. i sweat it out in a shirt and tie in a humid and stagnant station and the train doesn't arrive until 5:05am. i get on and after a few stops realize that this 4 train isn't running express. i don't know if it's because the 4 runs local before 5:30am or something, or if i picked the wrong train, or maybe i was on the 6 (shout out to j.lo!) the entire time and didn't know it. so i actually arrived at 6:15am.
got my admission, get sign out from night float, immediately start getting pages. finally see the new patient at 6:30am. not really paying attention to time very well, and being very inefficient overall, i work on the admission until about 7:45am. then i realize i need to see the other 7 patients before 8am.
that obviously doesn't happen.
look like an ass in front of my resident (and later, my attending), because i haven't had enough time to check up labs and see all my patients - but the 3rd and 4th year student have all their data. i feel like an idiot.
attending rounds just kind of dissolves on the floor about 11am or so for some reason. we all separate and resume work. i have 8 patients on my board.
and then, somehow, i start to get the hang of it a little bit. the nurses are tough but all of them are super nice (and all of them think they're making the "OHHHHHHHH DOCTOR OHHHHHhhHHHHhhhH" joke for the very first time. some of them repeated the joke from yesterday) and they seem to like me, which is a plus. something happens. i start feeling a bit more confident. i spend a bit more time going over my orders and the patient's vitals and labs and my pager screams a bit less. i end up discharging 3 patients, gearing up 1 for discharge tomorrow, and one for a transfer. that would leave me with 3 patients (right now i'm sitting with 5).
so i didn't eat lunch again today, but i got a lot done, and signed out an hour earlier than yesterday (actually since i got in an hour early, i guess that works itself out).
tomorrow is my "pre-call" day (since i'm on overnight on saturday), so i will not be taking admissions! nice! and i'll be sending off 2 of my 5 patients. TECHNICALLY i'm supposed to be done by 3pm on fri pre-call, and it really seems like i might be able to pull it off. definitely NOT eating lunch tomorrow.
tomorrow night tv on the radio is playing in prospect park. i can't wait to pass out in the grass before they start playing and lull me to sleep with their throbbing basslines and peter-gabriel-on-heroin melodies. that's not hate, i totally feel TVOTR, but i've been averaging 4 hours of sleep a night, so i'm just sayin.
saturday morning i will move in to my apartment in the bronx (thus eliminating the million-year commute) and live out of bags and on an aerobed for a week. saturday 3pm i go in and work overnight until sunday 3pm (i get 5 admissions). monday the whole thing starts all over again.
still don't remember a damn thing about medicine. but i'm getting the hang of working the system, which is really what this is all about, anyway. see you in brooklyn.
posted by dr. j at 6/29/2006 06:24:00 PM
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