Pre-game jitters
So I was on call on my first day of residency (Fri July 1). Kinda scary. PLUS it was a holiday. Double whammy. PLUS I had to work on the Sunday. Triple whammy. I spent the entire long weekend indoors.
It was a pretty nerve wracking experience for all I think because the whole ward was brand new, as well as the concept of the team. I am on the Acute Care of the Elderly rotation, which is basically like team medicine for old people. We have admission criteria which includes age >75. So, all of our patients are confused, demeted, or just plain grumpy. My pager only went off about every 15 minutes, constantly...throughout the day...and night....until about 11 pm. Then I had an hour or so to rest until inevitably one of my patients went into heart failure (supposedly for the first time ever). I stumbled my way through that one (never felt more unsure about ordering an IV drug) and finally got to sleep around 2 am. Got called a couple of times in the middle of the night for blood sugar problems (really...if the guy's got a BG of 17.8....I'm not getting out of bed). One other patient was so agitated that I had to order him some haldol, and he was snowed the next morning ("what happened to Mr. N??").
Number of comments on my new puma sneakers: 2
Number of times it was mentioned that I look too young to be a doctor: 1 (phew)
Number of times I referred to myself as Dr. so and so: 20+ (feels weird still)
Number of times I just referred to myself as Andrea: 1 (and they had no idea what I was talking about so I just went back to Dr. so and so
The second night on call was just as busy, but with no major acute issues. I had to see a woman in emerg with ALS who thought she had something stuck in her throat, and also suddenly could not speak. We couldn't figure it out, as she didn't have anything there, even after laryngoscope and suctioning. Poor woman.
Yay no more call until next Tuesday!!
It was a pretty nerve wracking experience for all I think because the whole ward was brand new, as well as the concept of the team. I am on the Acute Care of the Elderly rotation, which is basically like team medicine for old people. We have admission criteria which includes age >75. So, all of our patients are confused, demeted, or just plain grumpy. My pager only went off about every 15 minutes, constantly...throughout the day...and night....until about 11 pm. Then I had an hour or so to rest until inevitably one of my patients went into heart failure (supposedly for the first time ever). I stumbled my way through that one (never felt more unsure about ordering an IV drug) and finally got to sleep around 2 am. Got called a couple of times in the middle of the night for blood sugar problems (really...if the guy's got a BG of 17.8....I'm not getting out of bed). One other patient was so agitated that I had to order him some haldol, and he was snowed the next morning ("what happened to Mr. N??").
Number of comments on my new puma sneakers: 2
Number of times it was mentioned that I look too young to be a doctor: 1 (phew)
Number of times I referred to myself as Dr. so and so: 20+ (feels weird still)
Number of times I just referred to myself as Andrea: 1 (and they had no idea what I was talking about so I just went back to Dr. so and so
The second night on call was just as busy, but with no major acute issues. I had to see a woman in emerg with ALS who thought she had something stuck in her throat, and also suddenly could not speak. We couldn't figure it out, as she didn't have anything there, even after laryngoscope and suctioning. Poor woman.
Yay no more call until next Tuesday!!
posted by Moxy at 11:48 PM
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