post-call

I should be asleep at this point, 11:30pm, because I have to work tomorrow by 7 AM, which means waking up by 6 or so to make a 6:30 bus to the VA. However, today was post-call day, which meant I was out at 12pm, got home and passed out until 8pm tonight. Unintentional, but necessary after the night I experienced, with many issues popping up with the cross-cover patients, and getting 4 admissions relatively late in the game. There is nothing like getting paged as a starting intern for a cross-cover patient whose heart has stopped beating for 5 seconds and being asked what to do. I mean, I was still in school but 1 month ago...

Yesterday was our first call with the current team. Our new resident, my co-intern, me, and two eager medical students. Its amazing to see the students in this situation and know that barely 1 year ago, I was in their same shoes, eager to help out and trying to impress their resident and attending. Its exciting to be in that position to be a role model and try to teach the students. Unfortunately, not sure how much I am teaching them at this point!

Long call, like life, is made up of slow parts of the day, when there are no patients being admitted, rounds are done, and notes completed, you are messing around with the team-- to 30 minutes before call ends and you end up with a bunch of new patients. At least thats how it seemed yesterday. Going from thinking we'd be out of here and going home to sleep, to being lucky to get 1.5 hours of sleep is a sharp mental hurdle to get over. The worst is when you don't have a call room key and you're left pondering if sleeping in the car is the best option. Or when you have a patient that is on 50 medications and you have to go through them 1 by 1. But we got through it, and now I'm still up typing. In 4 days, the cycle will repeat itself, and I'll be hoping to go faster. and get some sleep. Still wondering how we fit in reading and studying as an intern.. thats for another night.