Scut

5 days down, 23 to go.

It really isn't so bad yet. I'm not carrying 6-8 patients yet (only 4 right now) though so we'll see how I feel when I have that many.

I actually (gasp!) kind of like it. I love being busy. I like thinking through the assessment and plan. I'm getting faster at data gathering and doing the patient interview.

Scut just doesn't bother me. The only thing I mind is chasing after people to make sure they do their jobs. Then I feel like a nag. But if you don't do it, the job doesn't get done and badness ensues. I had to nag the nurse of one of my patients 3 TIMES to collect the patient's urine and do legionella and pneumococcal urine antigens. 3!! And she still didn't do it.

Unf***ingbelievable.

And don't even tell me that she didn't do it because I nagged. She didn't do it because she didn't do it. Period. And the overnight nurse didn't do it either when the nightfloat person told her to do it either.

My real estate agent was commenting the other day that I had a very pessimistic view of how things worked. In my view, you assume that people are going to lose important paperwork. That the mortgage company will drop the ball and demand things of you at the last second, even if they've known for days that they need something from you. That they will blame you if you can't get that pdf file to them RIGHT THIS SECOND because you're on call at the hospital. As such, I make sure I am hyper-organized (esp for the mortgage) and that I take care of everything immediately as it comes up. And I send "helpful reminder" emails.

I.e. I nag people.

My agent wondered why I was like that.

I told her that me JOB was to nag people. That I spend all day at the hospital following up on things I've told people to do, and then tell them to do more things. And then I document them. My job is to get things done so that patients can leave the hospital before we make them sick (again). If you don't nag, patients don't leave and people die.

Badness.

Anyway, so far so good. My only complaint is that I feel tired when I get home. Very tired. With no escape. Intern year will be hard just because of that. It's hard knowing that you have so little time off and that there's nothing you can do about it. I think that's what's most oppressive about it.