#6: Ebb and Flow

Call nights are getting easier as time goes on but fatigue is setting in as today was my 11th straight day at the hospital. It was a tough day because I showed up at the hospital yesterday morning expecting to round on only three patients, but instead I found two new admissions overnight to check up on, and there were five new patients that came up from the operating room during the day. In the end, our service went from three patients to ten patients in the course of 12 hours, which translates into more work for your friendly neighborhood intern.

Yet I was able to get into a pretty good groove last night with all the work. I went into overdrive, running around the hospital knocking out tasks as quick as could be and I had some help in the form of a really good medical student. However, at midnight I shut myself off of caffeine in the hopes that I could get a decent amount of sleep overnight. The unexpected side effect of this was that my energy level slowed down big-time and I got inefficient in the early hours of the morning and after rounds. Nevertheless, I got a decent amount of sleep and I only needed about an hour nap when I got home this afternoon.

Continuing my trend of butt operations, I had enough time last night to scrub on an incision and drainage of a gluteal abscess. There is one attending who has taken an interest in teaching me techniques, and he was nice enough to page me down to the OR to cover the case. There's nothing as glamorous as a butt operation at 10 PM in the evening.

Patients covered last night: 34
Amount of sleep last night: 90 minutes
Currently reading: Still working on Greenfield's Acute Pancreatitis (we even have a patient with this presentation!)
Currently watching: Munich (watched it post-call, interesting spy movie but overall very depressing.)
Next call night: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 (I have the entire weekend off!!!)