Call Girl

Well, I survived my first 24-hour shift on call on Monday. It was rough as I started the shift on 4 hours of sleep. Much of my night was spent trying to get a particular study done on a trauma patient that we thought had ruptured his esophagus. There were problems getting ahold of the right people to push the test through. I had trouble finding the study to order properly in the computer system that I'm not used to using. In the end, a major 4-person trauma came into the ER at the time my patient was scheduled to get his study, so we got bumped.

Today I found out that after all that, the study turned out to be negative. I'm happy about it though, as it'll work out much better for the patient who already has a long recovery ahead with numerous back and facial fractures.

I was really nervous about this rotation as the previous intern had encountered all sorts of problems, but most of my pages involved pain issues. I did have one difficult floor patient who was extremely moody and kept having the nurse page me for stupid things. It was also disturbing that every time I went to see him, he was just a little more naked. I don't know if he was trying to impress me, but paging me at 10 pm, 10:45 pm, 12:00 am, 4:00 am, 4:30 am, and 5:15 am does not make me happy. Overall it was a long shift, and I managed to get about 20 minutes of sleep total. It wasn't as bad as I expected, just naggingly annoying and a constant reminder of why I don't want to be a hospitalist or work on the floor.

When I got home that morning, I took a four-hour nap. Then I got down to business, working on the deck for about 3 hours and then mowing the lawn. Tomorrow I have another 24-hour shift, and I'm not looking forward to it. I think it will be a little bit smoother as I should at least be familiar with some of the patients on our service.