Paying the piper

December 27, 2009 at 10:56 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The unfortunate thing about taking two weeks of vacation is that the payback is two weeks of q2 call.  Because it’s not the actual schedule that matters, it’s the average over your time on that service.  Fortunately due to some internal program politics not involving me, one of my days got reassigned to someone else and I had an unexpected weekend day off.  I have to admit it was nice.

But overall, q2 call – at least the kind where you really do work 30 hours or less – is not that bad.  Basically you work 30, go home for 18, and come back for another 30.  And repeat.  And repeat. And repeat.  It’s more sustainable than I would have guessed.  Of course, you can’t have much of a life outside of work.  However, I find q3-4 call just as disruptive socially and yet less of an excuse for not having a life.

In fact, if we’d been working with anyone other than the person actually assigned to be our critical care attending these last couple of weeks, it might have been truly enjoyable.  I do my best not to be obvious about the fact that I prefer to work with some of our critical care attendings more than others.   But I’m human, and I’m sure it shows.