...It Was the Worst of Times

I'm generally a pretty mellow, laid-back person. And before members of my family or old friends scratch their heads and wonder if they've unwittingly stumbled across a blog written by someone who is obviously not Brenna, I should qualify that statement: Compared to a lot of other residents/medical people, I am generally pretty mellow and laid back at work.

Three admissions in the ED? A chance to multi-task! Another RSV bronchiolitis patient? At least that will be a fast one! Present a patient I barely know at morning report? Why not! Call twenty billion consults on one patient? A chance to learn more! Work 19 of 20 days? At least I got that one off! Three pages in ten minutes about the same asinine issue? Obviously I didn't explain myself well in the first place!

But there comes a time every month or so - one might call it cyclical if one were so inclined, where I'm less... patient. And much more annoyed. With everything.

At the beginning of residency the fates were so kind as to allow that 'period' to occur at the start of a rotation. Because at the beginning of a rotation, I'm nervous, scared and unlikely to 'rock the boat,' as it were. These feelings outweigh my general annoyance with the world, so I maintain my cool. But, thanks to the vagaries of time and hormones, it happens that my annoyance grows at the end of a rotation. When I'm more confident with what is going on. And sooo-o-o much less willing to put up with... well, much of anything.

I was on call on Friday night. We had seven admissions between 5pm and midnight. Five of them arrived within half an hour of each other. At least one of them I deemed totally unnecessary. The pediatric floor is completely full, so the keep admitting patients all over the hospital. Plus I had to cover for all the patients that were already on the floor. And there are some new nurses that page a lot. In the middle of the night. With questions that could be handled at a time other than 3 am. And, to top it all off, there was a radiothon going on to raise money for the hospital. Which is totally cool and a wonderful cause, but they were all over the peds floor and just basically getting in my way.

And I was so sick of the RSV bronchiolitis and acute gastroenteritis and complicated MR/CP kids with 20,000 issues that I could spit.

On a normal day (or night), I would have been fine with all of the above. But this particular call night, I was not in the mood to deal.

I feel particularly bad for the upper level resident that was forced to work with the contentious me that night...

Ah, well. There's not much I can do about it now. I've got my last week on the wards coming up. Although, then I start two weeks of night float. Which is like the wards without the daylight. So... that's exciting. And then I do two weeks of Pulmonary. Which is like the wards without the interesting cases.

There appears to be no real point to this blog. Hmm. That's too bad. I guess you'll just have to deal.

Me? I'm off to get a pedicure - I'm working on the theory that I can handle things better with pretty toenails.