Miraculously, I survived my 4 months of hell doing Peds Clinic/Peds Wards, Inpatient Surgery and Internal Medicine Wards back-to-back.  My longest shift was a 35 hour call (which I fudged my hours on hehe).  Looking back, on Peds I worked 60 hours Friday-Monday for two weekends and took a total of 14 calls.  I took 8 overnight calls during surgery.  3 overnight calls during IM and 4 short calls till 9PM.   That was alot of hours

I can say with confidence that I know what sleep deprivation is now.  You haven’t lived until you are forced to do a procedure on someone after going 30 hours without any sleep.   It’s kinda like being drunk without any shred of happiness.  Your mind is fuzzy and you are just trying to keep moving.  I have run off of the road twice driving home from call and luckily havent caused a wreck yet   The good news is that life should get a little bit better starting June 1st.  Ya see, I’m starting my PGY 2 year a month early due to someone taking a leave of absence.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  The good thing is that they are letting me keep my week of vacation during that time and it is during a difficult rotation.  The bad part is I was scheduled for outpatient surgery during my last intern block which is fun and a cakewalk because you get to do all these cool surgical procedures by yourself and work Monday thru Friday from 8AM-4PM on average (A dream).  Instead I am doing pediatric wards and there are only two interns, which means many nights I will be alone running the floor and doing admissions by myself (Scary thought).  To add insult to injury, I will have to goto FM clinic after working a night shift for the morning.  So much for a nice easy ending for my intern year   No one said it was going to be easy though.

However, right now I am on OBGYN catching kids.  I have been on night float (5:30pm-7:30am) shift all week long and am “flipping” over to days by working a 24 hour shift today.  No one told me that weekend shifts start at 8am and I showed up 2 hours early this morning(Doh!).  I am very tired today, especially since my sleep schedule is completely screwed up.  I will be on day shifts next week (6:30am-6pm) and then flip back to nights again the following week.  Luckily the OBGYN staff at Carilion are actually pleasant to work with so it lessens the stress somewhat.  I have done 10 deliveries so far and I have an 11th pending right now in labor at the time of this writing.  I’ll probably pick up a couple more on this shift.  I’m still feel like I am learning the ropes but I am beginning to catch on.  Just need to do plenty more cervical checks. :/

Part of me is missing the safety net of being an intern but the vast majority of me is thinking “Good Riddance”.   I am looking forward to some lessened hours and increased responsibility in my 2nd year.  I’ve had really good evaluations thru my first year thus far but I am starting to lose steam I feel.  My health has been declining also.  I have gained 35lbs since starting internship, placing me close to a whopping 200lbs.     I start nutrasystem on Wednesday of this week for 6 weeks to aid in weight loss.  It’s nigh impossible to exercise when you are working 80+ hours a week, especially at odd hours.  You literally have zero energy and I always feel fatigued.  So if you are wondering why there is no music, you can rest assured the reason is that I’d rather sleep and spend what little time I have with my wife.

Maybe in a couple months, I’ll start being a happier person again and writing more humorous, crazy posts.    I am convinced Internship causes depression.