Surgery Week III
Here we are with hours for my third week.
Sunday - continuation of Saturday 0 hours
Monday - 8am - 8:45 am 24.75 hours
Tuesday - continuation of Monday 0 hours
Wednesday - 7:30 am - 6:15 pm 12.75 hours
Thursday - 5:30 am - 7:45 pm 12.25 hours
Friday - 5:30 am - 7:00 pm 13.5 hours
Saturday - 5:30am - 12:45 pm 7.25 hours
This week 70.5 hours. 'Q 2' call was absolutely brutal. I wasn't event supposed to get out that early on Monday, but my 9:15 am doctor's appointment got me out of there 5 hours early. We also got out a little early on Wednesday to go to 'journal club,' but I had a prior commitment. I still managed to attend two hours of journal club though. Our service was getting overwhelmed by the sheer number of patients and having our chief resident off. I also got a little extra sleep because I had an outpatient clinic on Wednesday morning too. One more week to go on this service.
Surgery Week II
I have now completed my second week of surgery. Let's check my hourly breakdown.
Sunday - 6am - 11am 5 hours
Monday- 8 am - 6:45 pm 10.75 hours
Tuesday - 6am - 8:45pm 14.75 hours
Wednesday 5:30am - 6:45 pm 13.25 hours
Thursday 6am - 6:30 pm 12.5 hours
Friday 5:30 am - 6 pm 12.5 hours
Saturday unable to remember - 29.5 hours
98.25 hours in 7 days. Don't tell me that Saturday can't be over 24 hours. It's called 'call,' and I was so out of it by the end that I had trouble finding my way around my own hospital. I went up the wrong flights of stairs a few times and got confused in the hallways. Incidentally, none of that would happen if I hadn't been so sleep deprived.
And now I am about to commit as 'so called' absolute medical no-no. I'm going to be back on call tomorrow. Yep, I'm on Q2. I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday morning, and
since being ill is not encouraged I took call again rather than get punished in some way by my rotation or team. But since I'm not a real doctor yet, technically, the
ACGME rules don't apply to me. Not that they are followed anyway since my residents last week stayed at least an hour past when I did every day.
Surgery Week I
So I just completed my almost first week of surgery. Let's do some surgery math.
Monday 7am-5pm. 10 hours.
Tuesday 8:30am-6:00pm 9.5 hours
Wednesday 6am-6:30m 12.5 hours
Thursday 6am-7pm 13 hours
Friday 6am-7:30pm 13.5 hours
Saturday day-0ff 0 hours
That would be 58.5 hours in 5 days. The first two days were orientation days so I got to start late and get back early. I tried to do the math for next week - I'll be on Sunday for about 8 hours, on for 12 hours for the next 5, and on for 28 when I'm on call. That would be about 96 hours. Big yay there.
Impulsive - so sue me
Now that I am moving onto to my surgery rotation - which scares me alot - I'm taking a moment to slap down my true personality and assume the proper respectful Med 3 position: meek. I'm going to be at a big outside hospital that sees alot of trauma and charity cases. That puts me in line to see alot of 'poor outcomes' (aka, people are going to die on the table.) It sounds bad, but I haven't seen someone die for the past few months.
I just spent a month on neuro and psych, neither of which were my cup of tea. They are two different breeds of people. The truth is, they were WAY too laid back for me. I'm intense. It doesn't make me an intense studier necessarily, but I'm just intense. If I'm doing something, it doesn't matter what it is, I'm doing it all out.
Sometimes this leads me to doing said thing RIGHT NOW. Yeah, I'm impulsive, but I don't regret that. It makes me the intense person I am. I'm dedicated and it makes sense to do it this very second. (Greetings from a future ER physician.)
Which leads me to a pet peeve: people who say they are going to do something and then don't. If I say I'm going to do something, I do it. If I don't do it, I'm sure as heck trying to do it or contacting the appropriate place and telling them why I'm not doing it. It doesn't matter what is going on elsewhere in my life; I'll probably still do it. Heck, I returned phone calls on Thanksgiving with my family in the car.
However, I have a strong suspicion that I'm going to have to clamp that off during surgery. It's going to be hard for me to because I am who I am - and you should probably not leave me alone with the patient and the scalpels when you aren't scrubbed in yet. I probably can't do the entire operation myself, but I have a pretty good idea how to start - yep, another budding ER doc. :)
Labels: impulses, personality, relationships, surgery
