| | A Jaded, Exhausted Post
8 months. 8 long, exhausting, soul-deadening months. We who were excited, nervous new interns donning long coats for the first time in June are now jaded, tired, angry residents. I now introduce myself automatically as "Dr" over the phone, learning long ago that this is the most efficient way to get what I need. I refuse to prescribe pain medications to people left and right without a twinge of pity. I yell at nurses and Starbucks baristas and Continental representatives with indiscretion when they are being inefficient, rude, or insufferable know-it-alls. I get to work at 4:30am, and I leave at 8pm (or noon the next day on overnight call). My hours are filled with paperwork, ceaseless pages from nurses asking to clarify orders, irate patients who complain about the gravy the hospital cafeteria insists on serving them. I'd love to tell those patients that they're lucky to have food at all, as usually I end up missing all my meals and am lucky if I get a chance to pee once a day. And I am angry... all. the. time. They never tell you when you're pre-med or in medical school that you must sacrifice compassion to become a doctor. I hope it's only temporary.
My lowest moment was a few months ago. It was the middle of the night, and things had slowed down just enough for me to run down to the cafeteria for my first bite to eat all day. I had gotten to work at 5am, and it was now 2am. I was starving. But there was this long line at the cafe. By the time it was my turn, all they had left were microwavable meals, and a few lone pastries. I put my meal in the microwave and unwrapped the little chocolate muffin I had bought for dessert, intending to just nibble a small piece while I waited. But at the first taste of food, my body went crazy. It suddenly awoke from a numb state to realize just how hungry it was. Unable to stop my own hands, I began to shove chocolate muffin into my mouth. Tears flowed down my cheeks as I turned to face the corner, hoping nobody would notice the streaks of chocolate around my mouth.
I know what you're thinking as you read this. Why does the system do this to doctors? Why can't the medical profession be civilized and limit work hours? Because people are selfish. Patients are selfish. In healthy times, people generally agree that they want well-rested doctors. But when they are sick, they want everything done ASAP, damned if there are 50 other patients, and they want their doctor to be at the bedside at all hours to answer questions at their (the patient's) convenience. My most furious patients got that way because a) something in their care plan did not get delivered in a timely fashion (timely as judged by the patient) or b) they were told I could not answer their questions because I was just covering for their primary doctor (who was at home getting a few precious hours of sleep). More restrictions on work hours would mean less continuity of care, and while I need that extra sleep and time to eat/pee, I can't see how all the work would get done.
Yesterday, I walked into an interesting room. 2 men lay in 2 hospital beds. One speaks only Russian. He is paralyzed from the chest down, from 3 gunshot wounds, lying motionless in the glow of a Russian lamp that his mother brought from home. The other patient would speak only Korean if he would wake up. But someone T-boned his car, and now he is missing half his skull. Both men are silent. The room smells like a mixture of sweat, fresh lilies, alcohol, and leaking diarrhea. It is a sad room, a reminder of death and possibly something worse: 2 people under 30 who will never walk or talk again. I only know sketches of their stories and the circumstances around how they got hurt. It is a deliberate thing that I don't know more. What if it's their own damn fault that they got shot/hit? I may stop caring for them altogether.
I wish... I don't know what I wish anymore. That people would stop driving? Stop carrying guns? Stop getting cancer? That humans would stop being human? It's an awful thing, being a doctor... charged with restoring something that can't be restored, that maybe is not worth restoring. You realize pretty quickly that if there isn't something outside of us that can save us, something untrapped by all that is rotten in our natures, something divine perhaps... then this world really has gone to shit.
Do you believe in God? Do I? How long, O Lord? Why do you hide your face from me? |
| | Posted 2/2/2009 6:16 PM - 144 Views - 18 eProps - 6 comments
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Before you know it, you'll be the other side of the tunnel. ^_^