So here I am at the office in between patients.  My nose is running like a leaky faucet and my body aches.  I didn’t feel well yesterday either but I worked out on my bowflex anyway (wedding less than 2 months away ya know!).  I feel completely run down and out of energy, even though I ate breakfast this morning.  Yet I’m not going to go home because, well, I won’t be able to call in sick in residency will I?  Not for something like this.  I am taking Augmentin 875 twice a day now and thus far it’s not doing poop. 

There was an interesting thread on the Student Doctor Network forums about calling in sick.  In surgery, you never call in sick…you just carry around an IV pole and have the scrub nurses feed you ibuprofen to keep your fever down while ya operate.  In Internal medicine residency, it’s still frowned upon to call in sick, particularly on a call day.  So I am trying to learn to suck it up and be the Obsessive-Compulsive hand washer to keep from getting sick.   Still…nothing can stop the old woman who accidently coughs up a wad of lung better in your face when you gag her with the tongue blade.  Nor can you escape the inevitable epidemic of gastroenteritis that spreads through the area like wildfire.  I’d rather have a cold anyday of the week than to be stuck on the toliet having the grand-mal-brownout every 15 minutes!

I’m curious. What do you patients think about doctors working when they are sick?  Would you want to be seen by a doctor with a cold?  Leave me some feedback on the comment section and let’s get some discussion going!

3 Comments to “Sick and Working”

1. Luxo — February 6, 2008 @ 1:28 am
   

   I’m no doctor, but it seems a bit questionable to perform surgery while sick. A cough can send the scalpel in the wrong direction, or maybe coughing and getting germs on a person’s exposed heart probably isn’t the best, hehe.

2. HyiHyil — February 6, 2008 @ 3:54 am
   

   Hum… I can’t imagine being seen by a sick doctor. If I need to heal from a cold, I hope he won’t have a “comercial gesture” by giving me… a gastroenteritis ?
   Until now, I heven’t seen my family one when he was sick… but his (hu…) replacement ? I’d better touch some wood !

3. Tony — February 6, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
   

   What a sensitive subject. Working while sick is something that is different for everyone. If you are ill, and I mean truly ill, not a little sniffle, you should not be working. This particularly should be true with health care professionals. The last thing someone who is already sick, injured, or has a chronic condition needs is whatever has you torn up.

   The flip to this is if you tell people “don’t work when sick”, it opens it up to all the people with no intestinal fortitude that will stay home because they have a hangnail.

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