Post Call

Day Two is the day after call, so it is appropriately named "post-call."  So I got there at 7am and left by 5pm.  Such a short day is hiiiiighly unusual!  Last cycle we were there at 6:15am until 10:30pm or so.  This is the day where you have done some initial workups of all your new patients the day before, so you finally get to present them to the attending (remember, he left at noon yesterday so he hasn't seen any of the patients who were admitted after he left).  Since he is such a scarce character but does the most of your block evaluation, you want to shine when delivering your report to this guy.  Additionally, the patient's been there overnight, so you get to see what effect your initial treatments had on your new patients... did they work?  Are the lab test values any better?  Any imaging studies that are done, with reports by radiology completed?  The answers to these questions get incorporated during morning rounds (keep up with the terminology here!) and help form your all-important Assessment & Plan.  Any Joe Schmoe can go find lab values and vital signs and report on them, but what they really want to see out of us is the ability to synthesize all this information and come up with a comprehensive "probable problem" vs. "possible other problems" list, explain how we can eliminate the possible problems, and how to effectively and safely treat the remaining most likely problem.

Usually this is a day of hard work but because we admitted so few patients yesterday, seeing that it was a Sunday, we had very little work to do.  Plus we were lucky in that a lot of our patients weren't sick enough to hang around for days and days, we were able to send a lot home after just one night in the hospital.

So next time you are hospitalized and hate the food and being woken at all hours of the day and night to have your blood drawn and are bored in your little room, just know that the medical team wants you to go home just as much as you do!  I, for one, came home, went for a short run and promptly fell asleep when I got back, since my body doesn't know what exercise or sleep is anymore.

Time to go scavenge for some food, then do some studying so I can be ready for Day Three!