I can't believe I'm just getting home. It is after 7pm and I was in this morning at 5:30. All I can say right now is that I have no idea how my pediatrician friends do this... Andrea and Naomi, you are both saints! Today was just ridiculous in a variety of ways. We had 8 admissions in the span of 4 hours, and our team is on call tonight too! Usually, the team that isn't on call tries to take the bulk of the admissions so the on call folks aren't slammed all day, but it just didn't work out that way today.
In between discharges and admissions and hordes of crazy family members, all I could think to myself is how hard this job is. Not only do you have to take care of the patients, who, by the way, are tiny, difficult to examine and terrible historians, if they can talk at all; but then you have to deal with the families and all of their ridiculousness. And that doesn't just mean Mom and Dad and kiddo, there are extended families, Godfathers named "Tiny" and Great Aunts who wind up with sole custody of the kids. What a mess! And of course, everyone wants to tell their side of the story and have their voice heard, and what should be a ten minute encounter can turn in to 30 minute in the blink of an eye.
OK, enough venting. This is a salute to you, Naomi and Andrea, for your hard work and kindness that persists unwavering even in the face of adversity (or insanity, you pick). You guys ROCK!
All you have to do is salute us and boy do we make comments ... :) Thanks for the props, though! I'm just glad you're both willing and have the talent to deal with the insanity that is the ER, it drives me crazy! Have you gotten our other emails? Do you know about free weekends in April?
Posted by: Nomers | October 28, 2007 at 09:48 PM
thanks girl - weird - I just made a post when your new entry just popped up! I salute you for dealing with drunks and homeless men with smelly feet - who knows which is worse - stinky adults or stinky kids!
Posted by: Andrea | October 28, 2007 at 08:26 PM