Anonymous Doctor

Jumping right from intern to resident-- with barely a 12-hour break in between-- is a little strange. I feel like I'm training people to do my job, while I'm still doing it. Which I guess is exactly what it is, but still.

I'm noticing stupid things, like I'm not used to being able to go to the vending machine without clearing it with my resident first. It felt crazy to just decide, hey, I'm hungry, I want a bag of pretzels, and "sneak off" without making sure my resident was OK with the three minutes I'd be gone. Maybe that means my residents have mostly been insane, because I didn't really care if my interns went to the vending machine. Assuming they weren't doing it in the middle of a code, but, you know, generally, uh, who really cares.

One of the other residents came into the call room and started introducing himself to the interns, confident, a little intimidating, "Hi, I'm Jack, I'm one of the residents, but don't worry, I'm nice to interns." Come on, yesterday you WERE an intern. YESTERDAY. These people are you, one day later. Why are you trying to make yourself feel important?

It's strange to realize how much I've learned over the past year-- it's hard to notice when you're in it, day after day, but the interns were asking questions that absolutely seem silly now, but of course they weren't silly to me a year ago.

"How long should the notes be?"

"What do you say in the note if the lab hasn't come back yet?"

"Do we call the doctors by their first name or last name?"

One of the interns has off today, because she's overnight tomorrow, so if you're overnight on Saturday, Sunday is your post-call day (so it's not really a day off), so you get Friday off as your "weekend" day. I'm telling the intern I'll see her on Saturday, and she looks at me--

"Oh, no, I'll come in tomorrow--"

"No, you're off."

"It's silly for me to take off on my second day! I'll come in!"

"No, it's your day off, why would you want to come in?"

"I just started, I don't need a day off."

"You'll need it after your 27-hour shift. You're off. Don't come in."

"Not even for a little while?"

"No. Sleep. Read. Anything. You work 6 days a week. You need a day off. And someone else will be covering your patients anyway."

"Well, if you're sure."

"I'm absolutely sure. Do not come in on your day off. That's one of the only good things about being a resident. Your hours are your hours, when you're off, you're off, no one will tell you to come in."

"Okay. But I'm worried I'll miss something important."

"Nothing that won't happen twenty more times before the year is over, I'm sure."

"Tell the patients not to die until I'm back."

"Um--"

"I didn't mean that exactly how it came out."

"Okay, that's fine. Get some sleep."