So I’m sitting here on call, pondering this question. For anyone who doesn’t know, call at this hospital means I am on from about 6am (yay 5th year! 6am is way late) to 7:30am tomorrow. In house, answering every page, seeing every consult, by myself. I call an attending to let them know and get help if I need, but I’m alone here. At this stage call isn’t so scary, I know I can handle any problem that comes up, or know how to get the help I need at the very least. But the thing on any call that I can’t stand, that drives me up the wall? Nursing. Floor. Pages.
Don’t get me wrong, probably 75% of pages are worthwhile and something the patient needs. But 25%, and that is not an overestimate, is unecessary, or because someone is lazy, or because they haven’t looked at the orders that are already in. If I’m on a slow service, this doesn’t bother me that much, but on a busy service, and really any time it’s waking me up at night, I get ENRAGED.
This is not rational. Yes, it interferes with the little sleep I get, yes it is annoying, yes I hate it, but the immediate anger I feel really isn’t necessary. A nurse just called to say he was told by a physician earlier it was ok to do something, but noone had put the order in the computer and he really needed it done. It was a completely benign, not necessary order. And he couldn’t just put in a verbal. For those that are at hospitals that don’t take verbals, sure, that’s a policy, here it is not. It is just a few lazy people who will page you all day but not put in the order themselves. We have seen 10 consults, put in two central lines, I have been in two four hour cases today, and my body is so sore I could cry. But he needs me to urgently put in this unecessary order he could have put in hours ago. In the grand scheme of life, this is not a huge deal. But the rage is real.
In reality, the rage only hurts me. It gets my heart racing, my mood darkening, my entire inner self turns black for way too long when this happens. I know a lot of it is literally trauma from surgery residency. My pager doesn’t cause the same rage and pain anymore, but only after literal years of no longer being first page every day. I still hate call. I don’t know why, no one can stop the clock, it can be brutal, but you servive.
So why do I let it affect me? Why do I not take steps to react in a better way for my mental health? Because it’s hard. Because everyone else reacts the same way. Because I self righteously feel that because I work twice the hours at the same pay after $300,000 debt taking care of 40 patients at a time that this nurse should be at least doing his minimal job.
But this helps noone. So today, using this call as an opportunity, I will try to take a breath, pause, and then find a way to feel appropriately annoyed. Baby steps.
