Thursday, June 14, 2007

Sleep on the Horizon

I was on call three out of the last four weekends. That wears a person down. Tomorrow, I have my final surgery exam, and on Monday I start anaesthesia. So, I won't have any call for two weeks, possibly four. Now I can get some sleep.

Too bad; I've enjoyed being in the OR. Or, should I say, I like being at the table in the OR, since I'll still be physically in the theatre for two weeks, but I won't be doing anything except perhaps some IV starts and some arterial blood draws. On the plus side, I am looking forward to sleeping in until 5:30 every day, instead of getting up at 4:30 like I have been.

I thought about going to Boston for the weekend, but at $1500 for a flight via Chicago, it's a bit too much dough for 48 hours out of town.

Hoo, today was not an easy day. Lucky for me I can fall back on YMO's 'Computer Game -- Theme from The Circus' to get me out of a funk.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too bad you couldn't make it. BTW did you hear that Ronnie got a job?

Marysienka said...

How come you wake up so early?!
I really like anesthesia, more than surgery at least. I enjoy "small" ortho surgeries, but I've had enough of hip replacements already ;) Anesthesia is more relax, and you'll get more experience with intubation and playing with drugs, which is kind of useful...

Tall Medstudent said...

Oh well, it would have been hard on me to fly all the way there and back.

I heard about her job. I always think of employment as the academic equivalent of giving up on life! :) I hope she doesn't.

I had to get up at that time, in order to make it to the hospital at the far side of town before 6, for virtual pre-rounding. A waste of time, because the morning labs aren't in yet, and often ins and outs aren't recorded yet by that time, but the task is expected of a clerk.

Funny, people I've spoken to here report anaesthesia as being more stressful than surgery, since they're forced to make conversation with the anaesthetist for hours on end. And by conversation, I mean getting grilled over physiology and pharmacology, things that we are taught rather poorly here. If the anaesthetist doesn't like talking, then the clerk gets to read their textbook, and things are easier for all involved...

Marysienka said...

I think anesthesia is stressful, but not as demanding physically as surgery! There's soo much to know in anesthesia! Anest#1 talks alllll the time, she taught me so much stuff, it's incredible. I hope you get to learn something interesting. I sure did.

Tall Medstudent said...

Well, as you predicted, the first day of anaesthesia was pretty good. It was really relaxed, and I did learn a lot! :)

Should be a good two weeks.