Finally Got My Call Schedule

Yes, I just got the schedule today, Saturday, and the rotation starts on Tuesday. What? That's not normal?

Fortunately, it's not such a bad call schedule. I'm on call the first time Wednesday, July 2, so if you're having a stroke and you come see me, please ask me to call my upper-level resident STAT. After that, I get the long weekend off (WOO!), and I have one Sunday and one Saturday call in the month, with the rest of the weekends off. All in all, 6 calls for July, which is better than the q4 I was anticipating.

My friends and I have been sending each other emails about what we're up to now. Most everyone else has already started their various rotations. One is in a clinic where an attending told him to "just do the usual for the patients, you know, write your assessment, write the prescriptions, here's my sticker". He's in his first week of real doctoring. Another is in a cardiac care unit, where he has already learned how to deny morphine to the "chest pain" patient who has ruled out for MI (and had other signs they were seeking). Still another is doing a medicine rotation and had to call a code on a patient the other night when they were pulseless and apneic (the patient, not the intern). A life was saved, so that the patient might go back to taking cocaine (which likely caused the MI in the first place).

In other words, they're out there in the big world of American medicine. Take pity on your young-looking doctors these next few months. If they're nervous, tell them to relax. If you're the patient, and you're nervous, remember that these fresh interns are heavily observed (usually) by the more-experienced.

And if you see a very small intern on a neurology service, and she says "Hi, I'm TS, your medical student, I mean your doctor", well, you still might want to be a little nervous. Because I hate neuro.