HO Shifts
You read that right: HO shift. Aka: House Officer shift. Personally, I think the acronym is kinda funny and I'll wholly embrace it. People joke that whoever has the shift is "ho-in' it up" and it makes me giggle every damn time I hear it. First one was today, and I'm proud to say that nobody died on my watch. In fact, the most important thing I did was probably OK a person to go to the ICU from a floor bed and do exactly ONE admit from the Emergency Room in a straightforward patient. So nothing groundbreaking or earthshattering here, and I'm 110% fine with that. To be honest, I was both excited and scared shitless of this first HO shift and my goal was to not screw up too bad and hopefully didn't get reamed out by an attending, so YAY!! for achieving those goals today! And in true Dr. S fashion, I commemorated the day with yet another pair of snarky socks. In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm pretty obsessed with Blue Q and their mildly-moderately inappropriate socks. They make me feel kinda badass and subtle at the same time.
One big upside to the HO shift is that it doesn't start until an hour after I normally do. So an extra hour of sleep AND I get to see sunlight in the morning before work! Yes, you see that? That is sunlight I'm pointing at.
I do have to say, though.....it still feels surreal to be called doctor. No joke, when someone says it, I still kind of look around before realizing they were talking to me. It's awesome and terrifying and humbling and motivational and all the things inbetween. HOWEVER.....when push comes to shove, and there's a rapid response called (there were two today), I kinda internally panic and secretly hope that there's an attending close by. This meme says it all, except sub "doctor" for "adult" and you basically have my train of thought today. Thankfully, I had a co-intern on today with me, so together I feel like we can figure things out. Also, on that note-the co-intern I was with today is awesome.....makes me thankful that I matched at a program and hospital system that's so friendly, down to earth, and family centered. I've yet to meet any of my co-interns or co-residents who are PITAs (I mean, there's bound to be a couple inevitably, but clearly they're far and few between).
Also, on that note, I'm pretty sure that hospitals/physicians are basically the only entity/people on the planet that still use a pager besides drug dealers and pimps (I don't know, do they?! I'd imagine they upgraded to an iphone or something). And not just ONE pager....oh no.....a half dozen. Thankfully, there's two of us and we got to split them up. One is my personal one (never goes off), one is the rapid response pager, and the other is the teaching service pager (specific to several of the attendings we admit for). Collectively, they will take down a loosely tied scrub pant, so those suckers got an extra tight tie today. Presumably a patient's family member laughed when I went through the cafeteria checkout when he saw my waistline.....said it was the first time he's seen a pager in nearly 20 years, and never 3 at a time! It is pretty ridiculous looking.
But the highlight of my day? Coming home to kids that had a blast at the pool all day (and who even had healthy snacks at the pool packed by dad!), were playing outside with friends, and a pretty badass husband who just took steaks and asparagus off the grill AND who mopped the entire main level of the house this afternoon! Seriously, I'm the luckiest running mom doc alive.
One big upside to the HO shift is that it doesn't start until an hour after I normally do. So an extra hour of sleep AND I get to see sunlight in the morning before work! Yes, you see that? That is sunlight I'm pointing at.
I do have to say, though.....it still feels surreal to be called doctor. No joke, when someone says it, I still kind of look around before realizing they were talking to me. It's awesome and terrifying and humbling and motivational and all the things inbetween. HOWEVER.....when push comes to shove, and there's a rapid response called (there were two today), I kinda internally panic and secretly hope that there's an attending close by. This meme says it all, except sub "doctor" for "adult" and you basically have my train of thought today. Thankfully, I had a co-intern on today with me, so together I feel like we can figure things out. Also, on that note-the co-intern I was with today is awesome.....makes me thankful that I matched at a program and hospital system that's so friendly, down to earth, and family centered. I've yet to meet any of my co-interns or co-residents who are PITAs (I mean, there's bound to be a couple inevitably, but clearly they're far and few between).
Also, on that note, I'm pretty sure that hospitals/physicians are basically the only entity/people on the planet that still use a pager besides drug dealers and pimps (I don't know, do they?! I'd imagine they upgraded to an iphone or something). And not just ONE pager....oh no.....a half dozen. Thankfully, there's two of us and we got to split them up. One is my personal one (never goes off), one is the rapid response pager, and the other is the teaching service pager (specific to several of the attendings we admit for). Collectively, they will take down a loosely tied scrub pant, so those suckers got an extra tight tie today. Presumably a patient's family member laughed when I went through the cafeteria checkout when he saw my waistline.....said it was the first time he's seen a pager in nearly 20 years, and never 3 at a time! It is pretty ridiculous looking.
But the highlight of my day? Coming home to kids that had a blast at the pool all day (and who even had healthy snacks at the pool packed by dad!), were playing outside with friends, and a pretty badass husband who just took steaks and asparagus off the grill AND who mopped the entire main level of the house this afternoon! Seriously, I'm the luckiest running mom doc alive.
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