#13: Swamped

I was so wiped out after Thursday night's call that I took a 3 hour nap at work in the call room before I drove home. I drive about 30 minutes door to door at 6 AM and 45 minutes door to door at 5 PM and I've been having trouble with falling asleep at the end of my drive home so I opted for the nap.

The last call night wasn't overly busy but I had been assigned several tasks that I knew I would not be able to complete in the time that I had. I had to prepare 6 cases for discussion in morning conference, get four discharges set up for the next day, and dictate several past discharge summaries before the patients came to clinic the next day. Add to that the three post-op checks that were signed out to me and the patient who showed up on the floor at 1 AM as a transfer from an outside hospital without any documentation about why he was transferred and understandably I didn't get any sleep.

I've been more in volved in teaching the medical students lately. The medical students like to hang out with me during the day and during call because I keep a running conversation going about why I am doing what I'm doing and I let them try things like drawing blood on patients and whatnot. I really enjoy teaching medical students, and when I've taught them a few things they can really help me out when they offer to pull drains, remove surgical staples, and other various jobs. I don't think they mind doing the scutwork because I always try to make it worthwhile for them by teaching them little intern tricks I know in return...

Last call night: Thursday, August 17th.
Amount of sleep last call night: 10 minutes in 2 periods of 5 minute naps.
Currently reading: Greenfield's chapter on Hepatic Neoplasms.
Currently watching: We are going to see Little Miss Sunshine tonight.
Next call night: Monday, August 21st.