* * Anonymous Doc

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Just got an e-mail from a friend who's a resident on the East Coast. With her permission, I'm excerpting:

They're making us sleep here. I'm not even supposed to be on this weekend, and they're making us work a 36 hour shift. Just in case. I understand they need doctors, but I'm not sure I realized this is what I was signing up for when I went to medical school. I didn't become a fireman or a police officer. I don't want to be involved in dangerous situations. I'm not in the Army. I'm an internal medicine resident doing an allergy fellowship next year. Dealing with the normal hospital population on a normal day is crazy and unpredictable enough. I didn't sign up to take the Hurricane Shift. I look forward to my fellowship, when they wouldn't even think to ask me to come in for this, because no one who doesn't belong in the psych ward is going to be wading through feet of water to come to the ER because they're itchy. If someone is hit with flying law chairs or blown out of their houses and drowning in the street, I understand they may need a doctor. That doctor will not be me. I was supposed to go to my dad's country house, in not-hurricane-land, and have a nice two-day weekend, my first two day weekend in four months. Instead, they're telling us they will "try to have enough empty hospital beds for us to sleep in" (!!) and we'll be getting hospital food for breakfast and dinner. I'd bring my own food, except they're saying probably a power outage, and the generators will only be used for essential equipment. If there's a power outage, all of our patients are going to die anyway, so why bother having us sleep there? I know I'm just annoyed because this stupid hurricane is ruining my weekend, but, really, why couldn't I have picked a normal job where they don't make you come in on the weekend when there's a hurricane? I am not that good of a doctor that anyone should really want me dealing with their emergency.

Happy to hear exciting medical-related hurricane stories in the comments. And if you run into my friend, tell her I say hi, and also you should probably find a different doctor.

12 comments:

  1. So much for the Hippocratic Oath...

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  2. @Anonymous: What aspect of the Hippocratic Oath are you referring to? I don't recall anything like "I give up my own life to serve any patients". But please, tell me, i'm curious about what you mean.

    @Anondoc: I'm living in Western Europe, no hurricane here, so no hurricane-stories from me. I'm quite glad about that, to be honest.

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  3. I am nurse. We had to spend 4 days sleeping at the hospital I work at because of an ice storm in Atlanta. It stinks. While I am into being dedicated to my profession and helping people, I am not big on sleeping on cots, hospital beds, or those pull out chairs in rooms, either. Bad sleep and cafeteria food during inclement weather doesn't make for sound medical decisions, that's for sure.

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  4. I concur with Alba. Nothing in any oath a physician takes obligates them to put themselves in harm's way.

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  5. No sleep-overs here...because apparently here it's state policy that in unsafe road conditions the state troopers are to transport "critical staff" to the hospital. I'm pretty sure the police didn't sign up for *that.* ;)

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  6. Haha, I was wondering when you were going to make a snide comment like: "Hope you don't get her as your ER doc..."

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  7. So, who should be there to take care of the patients? The RN staff alone?? EVERYONE needs to assist in an emergency. Understaffing and fatigue= errors that can cause loss of life. Suck it up! Roll up your sleeves and help. "Do no harm" also applies in an emergency situation,

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  8. Cry baby, and a coward and even proud of it....is this the sort of doctors medical schools train now?

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  9. I think that not having a two-day weekend for four months would contribute very much to fatigue...

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  10. It's fine for her to be mad about losing rare time off, even fine for her to stamp her feet and whine in an email to her friend. The real question is- what did she end up actually doing?

    That said, if there's a disaster I will not be at work either. I live in an area with the potential for a volcano eruption and with a major dam up in the nearby mountains leaking and crumbling, threatening something akin to a 500 year flood. (it's apparently somewhat repaired now.).

    If the volcano or dam blow, I will be torn and miserable. But I will take care of my family first. I am an RN, not an MD, but I swore an oath too. nothing in that oath requires me to stay at work and leave my young child to fend for herself.

    Sucky choices have to be made sometimes. The people stuck making them get to say "this sucks!". And the "right" answer is not always the expected one.

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  11. I was supposed to get surgery the day after the hurricane, but the hospital evacuated days before and was not open so it was postponed for 3 days later...


    ... By the way my town flooded so much that people were swimming in nasty river/rain water, the town actually started giving out tetanus shots for free. One of the people I know that swam in the water broke out with some kind of nasty rash and had to be an inpatient for 2 weeks, sucker.

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  12. My mother, then an ICU nurse (now a CRNA), was working at a hospital fifty minutes away from her home when a massive snow storm hit the area. Since it's a fairly rural place, the main highways were kept clear, but smaller city roads were a mess. Because of this, employees of the hospital who lived in town couldn't get there, so Mom got called in for 9 12-hour shifts in a row because she was able to drive the roads. If I'm not mistaken, this is illegal! But she did it, not entirely without complaint... Can't blame her (or this doctor) for that.

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