Back to the Waking Life

Hurrah! I have survived my two weeks on night float. Everytime I tell someone that, they all sort of imply that it's amongst the worse things you'll have to do as an intern. My experience really wasn't that bad, overall. Perhaps some of that was luck, in that nobody died unexpectedly or suffered because of a massive mistake I had made. Or maybe I just had really decent nurses in the ICU who had my back.

My last two nights, unfortunately, were hell. I realize now that some of that was my own fault, for not knowing when to ask for help in managing tasks. (I also didn't know that I had the right to insist that my senior medical resident physically come down to help me when I needed it for complicated patient problems.) Both nights, my pager exploded at 7 pm with things to do, and many tasks were pushed aside because of acute patients in danger of hemodynamic compromise. As a result, I managed to piss off nurses in the telemetry / step down unit, upset a family because I wasn't able to call them when their family member passed away in the hospice unit two hours before, embarrass myself in front of the surgery team because my medical senior resident had foisted a bogus request onto me, and basically run around as though I was not in any kind of control whatsoever.

When I read back on that, it seems a lot calmer a description than what I went through. After the first busy night, I had a mini-crackdown because I found it so upsetting that everyone was looking to me as if I had answers that I clearly couldn't possibly have because I am just too dumb to be a real doctor. I was upset because someone was rude to me, something I should have been able to handle but instead took as a sign that I was totally on my own. I was glad to have made it through that first night, and was so sure that the evening after would be calm and quiet. Of course, it was just as much madness and it seemed like there was just no respite. On top of having an even more acute patient and multiple other pages come in, a nurse informed me 30 minutes before signouts in the morning that a patient had not received any fluids or food for a full day, and was now reporting severe dehydration. Of course, this patient was also scheduled for surgery, and when I asked them for help with a central line, I got yelled at for not bringing the matter to their attention sooner, and was stuck staying an extra 2 hours longer trying to rectify the many complications associated with the situation.

In fairness, I deserved that reaming. Looking back over the past 2 weeks, there were a lot of things that I overlooked or didn't consider, many fevers I didn't investigate fully, many calls for help I should have made but didn't. Everyday, I felt like the bar was higher, always unreachable. And after those two days, I drove home asking myself if this was what I really wanted. I don't like missing sleep, I don't like feeling gross and messy, I don't like feeling like I've messed up, and I don't like getting yelled at.

But after a few days of getting back to a normal sleep schedule, I remembered that I always doubt whether I want to do surgery when I'm post-call. I always hate getting pushed around or failing. And I love it that much more when I brush myself off and finally win. I love surgery, and I love that it's hard, and I love that it's not something everyone can do. I love getting asked something and realizing that I learned the answer without even realizing it. And ultimately, I chose this. So I've jumped off the cliff, and all I can do is hope for a soft landing.