Settling In

Two weeks in, andI'm actually handling this rotation better than I thought I would. It's busy, especially on call nights. I have yet to get to sleep before 3 am on the nights we admit. We have to admit patients until 2 am, or until we have admitted 10 patients, and the last two call nights we have hit our 10 patient cap well before 2 am. Yet I'm still up until 3 am, writing notes, making sure everyone is tucked in, and ensuring that my main goal of any call night is accomplished -- everyone lives through the night. That's really my main objective when we admit new patients, especially late at night. We work with a skeleton crew at night, and while if there is something that MUST happen, I can usually coerce the necessary people into the hospital, it is much easier and faster to get tests the next day. We also have our full team the next morning, too, which makes the process of diagnosis much more productive.

I do miss having weekends off, but I'm doing ok with my one day off a week. I'm still finding time to make dinner every night, which lends some element of normalcy to my life. The exercise is still lacking however. I may need to relenquish dinner duty to Adam a few nights a week so I can get some work outs in. Maybe. I do hate to give up control of things, but I suppose I should allow Adam a chance to work on his cooking skills. If I want to accomplish that goal of running a 5K sometime this year, I probably need to start by leaving the house a few days a week. You do have to start somewhere...