Thursday . July 4 . 2002 . 10:37am |
whine and cheese Being on call the on July 3rd is a total gyp. You see, in New York, there's a questionably enforced law dictating that medical residents should not be allowed to work more than 24 hours at a time. This means that if you have overnight call, you're allowed to go home the next morning after signing your patients out to the team, or to whoever's on call for the next day if it happens to be a weekend. For instance, since I was on call last night, after reporting to morning rounds, I now have the day off to recuperate. But see, the thing is, I would have gotten today off anyway, because it's the Fourth of July. It's not even as bad to be on call for the Fourth itself, because while you might not be able to go out and have a weenie roast on the day of our nation's birth, to take Thursday call is basically to have a three-day weekend, with most of Friday and both Saturday and Sunday completely off. Dude, I totally got screwed. The same pre-holiday gyppiness principle applies with Saturday call, which I have not only this week, but next week too. Two Saturday calls in a row AND the third of July? Come on now. I think someone's been futzing around with the schedule to stick it to the Sub-I. (Yesterday before conference) MICHELLE Am I getting totally fucked over, here? Why does my call schedule suck balls? Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I feel like people are dumping on the Sub-I. INTERN (calmly) No, you're not being paranoid. You are getting fucked over. And get used to it, because it's going to happen some more. Though the same laws that dictate residents cannot work more than 24 hours straight also mandate at least one 24 hour out-of-hospital off-period per week, I basically don't have a full day off for the next three weeks straight. Damn you, cruel fate! Curse you, foul manipulators! I just like to bitch, of course. I'm actually loving my Sub-I experience, and I love the people on my team. It's hard work, but it's really, really fun. And it's making me feel calmer about my career choice, in that I'm becoming more and more confident that I've made the right one. Plus, all the free juice boxes and Oreo snack packs you could even want! Man, doing Peds is great! (Oh, and the kids are cute and stuff too.) Though it was a busy night, I did manage to squeeze in a decent nap at around 3:00am, folded in half on one of the couches in the Child Life Playroom on the 10th floor. (While we may be expected to do the work of an intern, a Sub-I doesn't actually get any of the few perks of being an intern, such as a paycheck or a key to the on-call suite.) That is it was a decent nap, until I got paged at 4:30am for a new admission, some kid admitted for diabetic ketoacidosis. What, kid, you couldn't have waited another two hours to come in? Damn. [I'm just kidding, of course. DKA is a real emergency. So if you have diabetes and measure finger sticks through the roof, don't sit around at home waiting to come in because you don't want to bother the ER staff or, even more importantly, "Charlie's Angels" is on HBO and you don't want to miss the part where Cameron Diaz dances around the bedroom in her underwear.] I'm just babbling now. It's too hot and I'm tired. I think I'm going to take a 5 hour nap and head downtown with Joe and Dave for some greasy American eatin' and fireworks on the East River. Nothing says freedom like brightly colored explosives. xo Michelle |
