cross cover

by: poppyseed

Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

by now i'm kind of used to the family medicine shuffle-- congratulations! you're a pediatrician, no wait, you're an obstetrician! no wait, you're a emergency room doc!-- so one more diconcerting jar and you're off in another world entirely. fine.

turns out my first day on service is also my first night on call. (nuts! sometimes that means an extra call for the month, and who likes call?) so i pick up my list of fifty strangers and start plowing through the stuff they need done before their primary teams arrive in the morning.
it takes forever. and even when i'm done i can't sleep. i lie there, my heart too fast, the metallic taste of adrenaline in my tongue, frantically willing myself to #@$(& relax! and waiting hopelessly for the next page. it could be one of the vascular surgery patients; they're really sick. it could be one of the post op checks i just did; sometimes they bleed. it could be that lady with the neck surgery, choking on her own blood. i can think of a million ways to die tonight.

then my cell phone goes off: it's time to check the three AM calcium for the thyroid lady, it's time to copy the vital signs onto the patient list, it's time to print up the progress notes for the team. it's time. and in an hour the primary teams will be here, pre-rounding and i can hand them back their lists of strangers. and then, it's only hours until i'm home, my pager is off, and the only people that matter i will know.