Can seriously make a person a little nuts. Today was a call day. Usually the way it works is that as we admit patients during the evening, the med students are assigned patients to see. After we see our patients, we round with the attending, and if we've picked up enough patients we can generally go home. Now, if we meet our requirement by 8:00pm, we can generally go home when we are done. Today, I got mine done at 6:00pm and we finished rounding soon thereafter. I was so stoked about getting done early. But we got a new resident today. And instead of letting each person leave as they finish their work, she wanted everybody to stay until each student was finished. And of course one student wasn't done... and she seemed to be taking her sweet time as well. So I literally had to stay 3 extra hours for no fucking reason whatsoever. Just standing around with my thumb up my ass.
Thats when the "nuts" part kicked in. My brain really started messing with me. Chastising myself for being so stupid as to go to med school at 32. Considering writing my letter of resignation. Wondering what would happen if I threw that large glass bottle of some unknown narcotic across the ED and just went totally AWOL. It was surreal. I seriously had to Buddha Zen my way out of it. It wasn't pretty, folks.
I think imagining things like that actually helps us not DO those things. I want to say it's natural, but what do I know? Maybe I'm crazy too.
ReplyDeleteit's ok! You're doing great! My friend just finished her first year at law school and she's 35 (still doesn't seem like she has things in order but she's getting through it). I would totally be pissed too if I had to stay an extra 3 hours because of one person...
ReplyDeleteI totally hear you on this, Ella. At times like these, I found it useful to remind myself that in a few hours, this too would pass. Anyone can wait patiently for just a few hours. Just make it into a game.
ReplyDeleteWasting time because of other people is common in a lot fields. I think it feels a lot worse for medical students because, more than most, you're pressed for time. Three hours is a HUGE loss when you're only getting six hours of sleep a night.
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