Am I a magnet?

For those of you that are not in the medical world, there are two basic kinds of ER doctors, magnets and repellents. Magnets are doctors working an emergency shift that seems consistently busier than any one else working that shift. With a real magnet, cases seem to start walking in the door as soon as they clock in. And I don't mean on 4th of July or Halloween or Friday night, those shifts are always busy and sucky. These are the doctors that techs/nurses groan to see that they are working because the staff know it will be busy. Repellents, or "coolers" in some circles, are doctors that always end of having a slow shift. Techs spend time cleaning and restocking. Everyone complains about how boring it is. That is another thing about the medical (and veterinary medical) world--if it is busy everyone complains, and if it is slow, everyone complains...there is never the perfect balance of cases.

In my general internship in So Cal, I was not a magnet, but more of a partial repellent. I usually had steady cases at night or during the day, but usually not crazy. Some of my other friends got stuck with a crazy amount of cases and ended up running around all day or night or both to get everything done. Then I would come on and everything would slow down. Frankly, since I am not big on ER, I was okay with this.

Perhaps it is possible to change teams when you cross state lines?? Here I am working in Ohio and my shifts have been crazy. I work a 6pm-midnight shift and the first 2 weeks I didn't leave until 2am, only to have to be back at the hospital at 7am to examine patients (yes I mean dogs and cats) before rounds. This is a very busy emergency service. They routinely have 3-4 doctors seeing cases around the clock and there are times when another doctor would be great.

This week though, in my third week, I reached a new level of sleeplessness and ER work. First, On Tuesday, it is a surgery day (as opposed to seeing clients we do surgery all day). Well, we were also on call for emergency surgeries that night and we didn't even leave the hospital before we had 3 surgeries that need to go. For my vet friends, it was a splenectomy and 2 foreign bodies. Anyways, I was at the hospital until 2am, came home and slept for 3 hours and then woke up to go back to the hospital. That night was my ER shift and instead of leaving at midnight, or even 2am, I left at 330am!! It was very busy and we had 3 CPRs to perform (for my un-vet friends, unlike TV, most CPRs fail, ie the patient dies, it sucks) and then all my other patients too. Even though I am getting faster with the computerized records, it is still a bit crazy. SO that night/morning I came home slept for 1.5 hours before heading back to work a full day. I was good as long as I was up and moving around, but then I had to sit in a meeting, with powerpoint and the lights turned way down. I seriously almost fell asleep in my chair, next to my boss!! I couldn't help it.

So I ask you, have I some how upset the cosmic balance? Did I not pray to the Gods of the ER enough? I hope that it will get better as I become more familiar with the system and staff. Because I really don't want them groaning when they see my name!!



PS--I am planning a blog about our new dog Cowboy, but that truly requires pictures and my camera is not working at the moment, stay tuned!