First Post-call day!

Man, what a weird last 48hrs. It started two nights ago with my resident Kamran text paging me to bring my toothbrush. Started yesterday morning at 6:50am, had a full day at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (in Cali baby!) including my first presentation at morning rounds. Then spent the rest of the afternoon kinda bored just reading and doing a progress note. Did figure out a cool problem of a kid with superinfected eczema who probably had Wiskott Aldrich syndrome (a rare immune deficiency disease) posed by Dr. A, one of the ID docs at the hospital (one of those senior docs everyone is afraid of but respects b/c he is a really smart but intense guy). Around 8pm got to do my first admit, a 7mo old girl who had lost her developmental milestones and had gone from being a happy cooing, feeding baby to one that was always crying and wouldn’t feed. Still not sure what is wrong with this one although likely something bad like a neurological disorder or metabolic deficiency. Then made my first diagnosis of a little 15mo old with Myasthenia Gravis, made more likely by approval from my senior residents at rounds and my intern who credited me! Got 5 hrs of sleep and then rounded on my patient in the morning wrote my first admit and progress notes which were included in her chart and then came home around 2pm excited at having done all these firsts only to crash literally sleeping on the floor with the TV on missing two phone calls. I just woke up, its 5pm and has been 36hrs since I started my first call day.

Amazing! I think part of medicine is that you get tortured so much with lack of sleep, scut-work, getting yelled at that the littlest things, a small complement from a senior, getting thanked by a patient or learning about a new diagnosis literally makes your day. This is a new way of finding happiness by lowering ones expectations to the point that just getting by is enough. You also become so efficient with your time that you can even manage your free time more effectively.
Still not sure if I want this life but surprisingly after 36 hours I am still feeling pretty good about myself! :)