5.19.2009

Gassed Out


I have any number of ideas about what to write but I am truly spent, good hearts. I am browning out. It's slower than burnout. I walk slower. The coffee isn't as good at 5 am in a nurse's unit as it is at 7 am on a beautiful morning on the patio with the kids. The iPod works but I get tired of walking the hospital stairs as my only workout, and listening to lectures while filling out forms as my only mental stimulation.

It could be worse, mind you. I have my health. We have running water, plumbing, heat, and food. There's no nearby war. I haven't lost my job or my house. But...

All of us on the current service have our own short-timer's calendar. Somehow we're all looking forward to the 20th because the 20th seems a manageable amount of days away from the end of the month, but that's only half-time, and then it's on to another month of call and scut, then another.

I'm tired of having my family and my relationship come 5th of 5 on the priority list so we can walk around and discuss oral versus IV magnesium supplementation and when to make so-and-so NPO for the cath I won't see except to document normal pedal pulses four hours after return.

This isn't a sarcastic hate the world post, a lot of patients are decent and I'll try to post about them, it's just that I'm 'all done', thanks, as my son would say. All done.

2 comments:

PGYx said...

Sorry you're in internship limbo. It's not fair that our families get relegated to last place on the priority list.

Where do you get the lectures? I read a ton but sometimes computer time is hard to come by. I find myself spending most of my free evenings catching up on clinical cases & the latest research. By then I'm so tired that I end up reading while horizontal in bed with my laptop perched on my thighs. I'm thankful that I actually enjoy doing this, and I learn a lot in the process, but it would be nice to learn a bit more during lunch or my commute!

Tyro said...

The iTunes store has quite a few free podcasts of good quality; I recommend the Albany Med, Stanford, and Iowa EM podcasts, search by medicine category or key words of your speciality. These are all free. If you're an EMRA member, they give you access to EM-RAP, which is an awesome monthly podcast.