alzheimer
08-09-2007, 10:31 PM
Feeling Like the Only Doctor in the World
http://medscape.typepad.com/thedifferential/images/2007/08/26/kristenheinan272x721.gif (http://medscape.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/26/kristenheinan272x721.gif)Kristen Heinan -- Wow, thank the Lord it is finally my day off. I don’t know if I could have made it much longer without a break. You know, you start out acknowledging that you’re in a really challenging situation, and you recognize that you’re running on all cylinders, but you’re doing ok… and a few days go by and you start to realize how tired you are, but you still are optimistic that the situation will soon abate… but then things get even more chaotic… and you push yourself to “make it through day by day,” but you’re so tired that you’re even less efficient than normal, and you become frazzled and careless and make mistakes all over the place, which makes you pissed off at yourself (and you don’t need to be reminded by everyone else that you’re doing things all wrong either, thanks)… and then you’re just hoping and praying that you can hold things together for just a little while longer.
I think the last time I wrote was a couple of weeks ago, when the nursery was practically a ghost town. Ha! What a fluke that was! I didn’t write last week because I was so busy and overwhelmed, but that week was nothing compared to this past week. Ohmygoodness it was awful. It feels terrible to speak this way about all of these miracles and tiny new lives filled with so much promise. There were just so many! There were a couple of days where I literally went to 3 deliveries in an hour… while trying to finish notes or putting in orders or trying to finish examining the other babies, or talking to the new moms or chasing down lab results or sorting out another snafu, or trying not to ignore the med students or making sure the new babies had follow-up appointments or remembering all the stuff I still needed to do.
And it was just me this week. For the past 4 weeks, there was another intern working with me, but this week I was scheduled alone, so I had to keep track of everyone myself. All week, we had at least 15 babies, and I was supposed to see them all before the attending was ready to round at 8:30 am. Yeah, I didn’t do so good with that. Even though I tried to get to the hospital around 5:15 every morning, I still wasn’t finished in time. Finally on Friday, I think my attending was frustrated because she came in a little after 6 am (saying she was “not going to make a habit of this”) to help with pre-rounding.
But really, it was so crazy and overwhelming, especially when I was sitting at the computer looking up someone’s lab while suddenly remembering another order I needed to write, and the med students were asking me about something else, while 5 or 6 babies were egging each other on by screaming “I’m hungry/ I’m wet/ I just got circ’ed.” And I just felt totally alone, like I was the only doctor in the world, and everyone wanted me for something but no one was there to help me. I don’t think I made it to morning or noon conference once. And I missed the special “intern lunch” where supposedly we got to hand our pagers to the second-year residents and go have lunch somewhere in town (paid for by the department). Yeah, that didn’t happen for me. Oh well.
The nurses were great, though -- I wouldn’t have survived without them! They were so helpful and so great at helping keep my spirits up -- Christy brought me a piece of her special chocolate cake, and Suzanne gave me a pink flower to put on my Croc shoe. And she totally made my day earlier in the week… When I showed up in the OR for a C-section that was being done under sensitive circumstances, she smiled and said that she had been hoping it would be me. That really made my day. People don’t realize, but it’s just the simple little things like that which are so meaningful. You never know when someone might need an extra little boost, and you never know how your own conscious or unconscious actions might impact those around you.
http://medscape.typepad.com/thedifferential/images/2007/08/26/kristenheinan272x721.gif (http://medscape.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/26/kristenheinan272x721.gif)Kristen Heinan -- Wow, thank the Lord it is finally my day off. I don’t know if I could have made it much longer without a break. You know, you start out acknowledging that you’re in a really challenging situation, and you recognize that you’re running on all cylinders, but you’re doing ok… and a few days go by and you start to realize how tired you are, but you still are optimistic that the situation will soon abate… but then things get even more chaotic… and you push yourself to “make it through day by day,” but you’re so tired that you’re even less efficient than normal, and you become frazzled and careless and make mistakes all over the place, which makes you pissed off at yourself (and you don’t need to be reminded by everyone else that you’re doing things all wrong either, thanks)… and then you’re just hoping and praying that you can hold things together for just a little while longer.
I think the last time I wrote was a couple of weeks ago, when the nursery was practically a ghost town. Ha! What a fluke that was! I didn’t write last week because I was so busy and overwhelmed, but that week was nothing compared to this past week. Ohmygoodness it was awful. It feels terrible to speak this way about all of these miracles and tiny new lives filled with so much promise. There were just so many! There were a couple of days where I literally went to 3 deliveries in an hour… while trying to finish notes or putting in orders or trying to finish examining the other babies, or talking to the new moms or chasing down lab results or sorting out another snafu, or trying not to ignore the med students or making sure the new babies had follow-up appointments or remembering all the stuff I still needed to do.
And it was just me this week. For the past 4 weeks, there was another intern working with me, but this week I was scheduled alone, so I had to keep track of everyone myself. All week, we had at least 15 babies, and I was supposed to see them all before the attending was ready to round at 8:30 am. Yeah, I didn’t do so good with that. Even though I tried to get to the hospital around 5:15 every morning, I still wasn’t finished in time. Finally on Friday, I think my attending was frustrated because she came in a little after 6 am (saying she was “not going to make a habit of this”) to help with pre-rounding.
But really, it was so crazy and overwhelming, especially when I was sitting at the computer looking up someone’s lab while suddenly remembering another order I needed to write, and the med students were asking me about something else, while 5 or 6 babies were egging each other on by screaming “I’m hungry/ I’m wet/ I just got circ’ed.” And I just felt totally alone, like I was the only doctor in the world, and everyone wanted me for something but no one was there to help me. I don’t think I made it to morning or noon conference once. And I missed the special “intern lunch” where supposedly we got to hand our pagers to the second-year residents and go have lunch somewhere in town (paid for by the department). Yeah, that didn’t happen for me. Oh well.
The nurses were great, though -- I wouldn’t have survived without them! They were so helpful and so great at helping keep my spirits up -- Christy brought me a piece of her special chocolate cake, and Suzanne gave me a pink flower to put on my Croc shoe. And she totally made my day earlier in the week… When I showed up in the OR for a C-section that was being done under sensitive circumstances, she smiled and said that she had been hoping it would be me. That really made my day. People don’t realize, but it’s just the simple little things like that which are so meaningful. You never know when someone might need an extra little boost, and you never know how your own conscious or unconscious actions might impact those around you.