Bloggin' from a call room

Today, a nurse asked me to come talk to a mom about a baby's rash because the mom wanted to talk to "a real doctor".  My first instinct was to say: I'm not a real doctor!  But instead, I examined the baby and reassured the mom.  I introduced myself as "Dr. [Newlastname] and didn't let slip the fact that the nurse knows way more than I do about baby rashes.

 

Toto, we're not in medical school anymore!!

 

I'm on my second night on call, and it's blissfully slow right now (KNOCK ON WOOD).  In medicine, there are people who are known to be "white clouds" - when they are on service, the patients are all well, there is minimal difficult work to be done, and there are few new admissions.  For white clouds, call nights are full of sleep and fun. 

 

And then there are "black clouds" or "dark clouds" - people who inevitably have a million admissions while being paged non-stop with emergencies and annoying tasks.  Dark clouds don't sleep on clouds.  I, my friends, am a dark cloud.  I am the girl whose patient HAD A SEIZURE at the very moment she walked into his room on her first ever call night in medical school.  I am the girl who admitted the record number of patients to my team overnight.  When my co-intern and I went to a twin delivery, my twin was the one who decided not to breathe and got admitted to the NICU, while my co-interns was pink and screaming and went straight to the newborn nursery.  Le sigh.

 

And so I shouldn't have been surprised, on Monday, when my first call night was full of very little sleep and very many babies.  I'm crossing my fingers that tonight is a rare white-fluffy-cloud-filled day!

Babies are cute, but I hate when they're born blue and not breathing, and I'm the person who has to fix it!  Repeatedly, all night!  And fill out all the paperwork involved in such situations!

 

And so, a list of things I've decided over the past week as a "real doctor":

- I never, ever, ever want to have twins  (knock on wood)

- I think the worst part of having a baby will be the inability to drink water during labor - it could be 24 hours!!

- Almond butter & jelly sandwiches only sustain me for 4 hours, max

- there are more, but I should probably stop emailing a blog post!

 

Happy scorching weekend!!