Physician, heal thyself.
Today has been a particularly exhausting day.
One of my colleagues is on leave at the moment, so I'm covering for him and taking on all his patients and jobs. My Senior Registrar and Senior House Officer are on a surgical training courses this week, so there's just the Consultant and myself on the firm, so when the boss is away, I'm the most senior member of the team.
Grr-rreat.
Additionally, some bright spark down in the admissions department decided to book 11 patients onto my surgical pre-assessment clinic today (normal clinic size is about 4-5 patients). This means that I'm not only post-take (ie. all the new patients from overnight are in my charge), and post-list (all the elective surgical patients from yesterday are in my charge), but I also have to clerk in and workup an additional 11 patients and make sure all of them are in fit condition for surgery.
It has been a long day. I normally manage to take time out to have breakfast, but I didn't get a chance. Then, I forgot to have lunch because I was so busy sorting out a 'sickie' who had to be transferred to the high-dependancy unit, so by the time I got to the canteen it was closed.
I drank half a cup of tea before getting bleeped away to review a patient who had pulled out her urinary catheter (OUCH). I must have looked like the living dead because some nurse took pity on me and gave me a biscuit. It had chocolate on it.
I had to work a couple hours overtime, so by the time I finished I was so weak that it took me an hour to walk back home from the train station (usually takes me ten minutes). My legs were like reeds shivering in the wind. I haven't yet made dinner or washed the dishes or sorted out the laundry I was going to do today.
Right now, the computer screen swims in and out of focus and I'm getting that tight feeling in the muscles of my forehead which signal the beginnings of a headache.
I'm going to go and lie down, sod the housework.
I should take better care of myself.
One of my colleagues is on leave at the moment, so I'm covering for him and taking on all his patients and jobs. My Senior Registrar and Senior House Officer are on a surgical training courses this week, so there's just the Consultant and myself on the firm, so when the boss is away, I'm the most senior member of the team.
Grr-rreat.
Additionally, some bright spark down in the admissions department decided to book 11 patients onto my surgical pre-assessment clinic today (normal clinic size is about 4-5 patients). This means that I'm not only post-take (ie. all the new patients from overnight are in my charge), and post-list (all the elective surgical patients from yesterday are in my charge), but I also have to clerk in and workup an additional 11 patients and make sure all of them are in fit condition for surgery.
It has been a long day. I normally manage to take time out to have breakfast, but I didn't get a chance. Then, I forgot to have lunch because I was so busy sorting out a 'sickie' who had to be transferred to the high-dependancy unit, so by the time I got to the canteen it was closed.
I drank half a cup of tea before getting bleeped away to review a patient who had pulled out her urinary catheter (OUCH). I must have looked like the living dead because some nurse took pity on me and gave me a biscuit. It had chocolate on it.
I had to work a couple hours overtime, so by the time I finished I was so weak that it took me an hour to walk back home from the train station (usually takes me ten minutes). My legs were like reeds shivering in the wind. I haven't yet made dinner or washed the dishes or sorted out the laundry I was going to do today.
Right now, the computer screen swims in and out of focus and I'm getting that tight feeling in the muscles of my forehead which signal the beginnings of a headache.
I'm going to go and lie down, sod the housework.
I should take better care of myself.
Labels: Clinical observations, Me time
posted by tscd at 3:36 am
3 Comments:
Migraine? Or tension headache?
-budak-
hooray for work... i've had days like these too.. take better care of yourself, put a sticky note somewhere that says "are you hungry?".. i've one right beside my comp
budak: Tension headache - probably dehydrated. I can see why you thought it could've been a migraine, though. Good call!
odd forest: I'm perpetually hungry, so that doesn't work for me. ;) I should really carry sweeties in my pocket or something.
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