Back To General Internal Medicine (...and Call)

just like high school!

After three other rotations at three different hospitals, I'm back at the inner-city hospital for my second four-week block of general internal medicine. This rotation is pretty much identical to my first medicine rotation, back in September and October. I'm even on the same ward and it's nice to see some familiar faces (any familiarity is appreciated when you're a resident switching services and starting from square one every four weeks!). 

There is one thing that's better about this rotation than my previous one though: we have assigned lockers! I'd never bothered with lockers before this week, but after Monday I realized how nice it is to not have to carry my white coat and stethoscope back and forth each day and to have an alternative to stashing my jacket and lunch under a desk at the nursing station. 

I guess the fact that my main source of joy these days is my locker says a thing or two about the internal medicine rotation. It's very much a service rotation where the residents work on the wards and on admitting new patients from the emergency department. Doing both at once makes for pretty busy call shifts.


My 27-hour call shift on Monday felt especially long after all the mellow palliative care home call I did last week. I didn't even get a break to eat the chocolate chip cookies I'd baked in anticipation of my call shift :(

cookies make call shifts better...that is, if you find time to eat them

...but I did find a break at 6 pm to have my dinner :)

By the time I got off on Tuesday morning I was feeling pretty lousy as I hadn't slept at all and hadn't eaten for the past 15 hours. A stop at home to shower helped turn things around and I hurried off to bring my car into the shop for maintenance (as errands are what post-call days are for!).

Fortunately there's a McDonald's right beside the auto shop and I spent a nice two hours amongst the seniors chatting over their morning coffees, enjoying a sausage McMuffin and coffee while reading the paper. I even did my first sudoku, which was way more fun than I'd expected.

the most delicious McMuffin I've ever had

a productive morning

After picking up my car I headed straight home to make lunch. Having just driven past Deluxe Rice Bowl, I was craving fried rice, so took five minutes to fry up my favourite version, with eggs, cheese, corn, banana peppers, and sriracha.

my favourite lazy meal

I decided not to nap, as I didn't want to disrupt my sleep cycle that night, but "I'll just close my eyes for a minute" inevitably turned into a solid nap. When I eventually awoke it was dark out and the clock read 5:55, which for a panicked moment had me thinking I had slept all through the night and was going to be late for work. Realizing it was 5:55 pm was such a relief and I celebrated my newfound twelve hours by making ramen and watching alll the TV -- Girls, Mindy, Parks (x2!!), and New Girl. I'd say it turned out to be a pretty good post-call day!