I was going to write this last night, when I got home from the hospital, around 9:00, after a 15.5 hour day, but I was really tired, and not just a little punch-drunk at the time, so the post would have been a little more fun than is strictly necessary. So I waited until today (thankfully I have this weekend off) when I have had a blessed 12 hours of sleep, though I do have a post-sleep headache, the kind I get after a long sleep after being really sleep-deprived ( kind of a no-win situation), but I'll power through it.
I'm getting used to running around an empty OR; we have a little office right off the OR, which is quite convenient, but we have to get there super-early (4:45 some mornings) (I know, sick and wrong) and I use the copy machine in the OR to make copies of the list, so I go through an empty OR every morning, and certainly last night, when we finally got out of surgery at 7:30-ish the place was pretty deserted. When I was on OB-Gyn there were two different times when I was on call that ectopic pregnancies came in through the ER and we took them to surgery at some odd hour of the night/morning; those times the deserted OR seemed pretty creepy, but now its getting pretty run of the mill.
I've been mentally compiling a list of reasons that its a really good thing that I decided not to go into surgery; there are so many....
- chronic sleep deprivation; its common to have meetings that start at 7:30, and you have to see all your patients before hand, hence the 4:45 mornings. Anyone who knows me at all knows how much I hate getting up early.
- playing the game; surgery is one giant power struggle, in some ways revoltingly similar to a soap-opera. Everyone wants their butt kissed, and if they don't get the deference they feel they deserve, they will find a way to strike back. I am almost willing to put in writing and place a bet on what my current intern is going to write on my evaluation at the end of the month, and its not going to be anything nice, because I don't kiss her butt the way she wants.
- really long hours; 13 hour days are pretty common, at least in residency, which is at least 5 years. Seems like a long time, 5 years of 13 hour days, pretty much every day. I'm really lucky right now that I have weekends off; the residents don't.
- its an unpleasant community of people that I don't want to become like and don't want to spend my time around. Every specialty in medicine attracts certain personality types, and while not every person fits the mold, the overwhelming majority do. Which is why I can already tell you what my intern is going to write on my eval, because women in surgery are particularly prone to saving up their grievances and seeing if they can't damage your future by writing you a nasty eval.
- standing for long periods of time; some cases last many many hours, all of which you spend standing in one place, with good posture, maintaining the sterile field. I have flat feet, which does not help hours of standing be any more pleasant. Not my idea of a good time.
- chronic dehydration; the last thing you want is to be scrubbed in to a case and have to pee. Because its surgery, you can't say anything, you just have to stand there and suck it up. Last night my painkillers wore off during surgery and I started having really bad cramps. Could I say anything? No. Especially not with my female intern there; surgery females are particularly hard on other females showing any kind of feminine weakness, like having cramps. Heaven forbid. (it doesn't pay to look really nice, either. they'll resent you for it). Back on the dehydration thing, I've heard that surgeons get kidney stones a lot because of it. While I have not yet had a kidney stone, considering the gene pool from which I come, its only a matter of time, and there's no reason to get one sooner than is strictly necessary.
Hmmm. Thats probably most of my list for now. But it seems like more than sufficient reasons to be glad I decided not to go into surgery. ER is way better, though I'll save why for a later post.
We pulled out a really nasty necrotic gall bladder the other day. It had basically decayed inside this guy, and for some crazy reason wasn't causing any pain. It also had a gall stone in it that was almost as big as a shooter marble.
On the up side of things, this month is half over, the intern that wants her butt kissed will be gone all of next week on vacation, and my rotation next month will be super-easy. I'm quite looking forward to it. And I'm feeling smart because I'm working with some 3rd year students that seem more than particularly not-on-top-of-things.
I'm going to make pumpkin pie today, which I am pretty excited about, it being pumpkin pie season.
I discovered greek yogurt this last week, on the heals of more trouble with my guts (you don't want the details, trust me). Plain greek yogurt is far more palatable than plain regular yogurt. It has a creamy flavor, and the sour yogurt thing is fairly muted. Quite nice, and easy on an upset stomach.
I've been selling enough books and CD's on half.com that I've had to stop using my reusable shopping bags so that I can get more paper bags to use as shipping materials. At least I'm still recycling.
:)
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