IM Acting Internship Day 5

We had our 2nd long call day today. Though we are no longer being slammed with 10 new patients and working 30+ hour call shifts, the new no-overnight schedule still takes its toll.

Here's a summary of my day:

* 5am: get up, shower, pee
* 6am: preround on pts, write d/c summaries/orders/paperwork
* 8am: round with team and attending
* 10am: Chairman's rounds: spend one hour with the frightenling brilliant, yet remarkably approachable, chairman of our department.
* 11am: Morning report with 2 cases: pleural effusions and liver failiure
* 12pm: run to drop off orders/ discharge pts/ talk to pts/ get food
* 12:30: attending pearls on liver failure
* 1pm: special morning report/teaching for acting interns
* 2pm: finish discharging
* 3pm: get new patient, read up on hx, write orders, start H&P
* 4pm: resident arrives to sign my orders and pt begins to destabilize 10 minutes later, order 2L bore IVs, take labs, order blood, thank god i'm not in charge and do not have the power to do anything
* 5pm: resident called away, ICU team busy, nurses panicking, i start to feel frustrated as i know what needs to be done, but do not have the power to do it
* 6pm: icu team arrives and whisks my patient away before she codes on me
* 6:30pm: new pt in ER, complicated and unable to provide history. takes me 3 hours to get a history, do a physical, and write his orders (takes equally long to catch my super busy resident long enough to get her help with the orders)
* 10pm: find out my morning "discharged" pt is still in hospital and investigate that
* 11pm: write H&P, signout to nightfloat team, check up on pt
* 1am: walk in fear to my car
* 1:30 am: PEE!