As some of you may (not) know, I’m doing my acute medicine rotation as part of my 2-year internal medicine core training. This means the temporary shitty shifts, and the struggle for survival of 13 hour back to back on-calls for 7 days in a row. 3 days then 4 nights, a weekend off, and a string of 13 hour on-call days.
One of the lucky times we got to snooze in the Mess. So cute!
Night shifts are unpredictable, so you can have no-one to see, or all of a sudden 6 people waiting to be seen and sorted. You may have 1 really ill one, or 6 crap admissions. Or people going off everywhere. Up to you to prioritise, and young(er) docs tend to be perfectionist and want to see and sort everything before going on their breaks. Bad idea. You’ll find it’s 8am in the morning before you’ve had a pee.
*Tip: know what can wait and what can’t.
So knackered we fell asleep despite Family Guy on TV
I hate that part of the rota, but the trade-off is off-days on weekdays and 2 week holiday blocks. Woo hoo!
The other good thing about nights is not having to deal with administrative bollocks. And it being simpler to prioritise what can wait and what cannot wait based simply on the fact that your consultants are asleep, and no, you cannot do an MRI in the middle of the night, and no, there are no surgeons to deal with un-sensational abdomens. (ie. not about to rupture any minute)
You must be thinking what a nice life we have, but I don't take the camera out when we're life-saving...
Goodbye for now! Next shift after the weekend: Mon-fri 13-hour on-call days.
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