My last week at the clinic was brutal. It's amazing that I'm saying that considering that it is "clinic", which is outpatient, which is "easy"...but it was rough. I'm not coming down on clinic work, I actually enjoy it and I look forward to working in a clinic again...just not that one. Please understand that I am speaking very objectively without prejudice when I say that working with a Spanish population when you don't speak Spanish is a complete pain in the @$$. I would see maybe one English speaker a day, which was always a treat because of how fast I could fly through the interview, diagnosis, and treatment process. But those intermittent "treats" were not enough to "lighten the load" of patients who took twice the time to speak to. To make that last semana (I've gotten much better at my Spanish by the way) extra special I also got sick.
This is my first time getting sick as a doctor. While it sounds stupid to say it that way, getting sick in previous "roles" has always afforded me the option of actually taking sick leave when you don't feel like going to work. As a student in grade school and high school, you always had to convince your parents to let you stay home. In college you wore the pants and going to school wasn't "mandatory" anymore. In medical school we were similar to residents in the type of work we did, however the responsibility of taking care of patients, in the end, always rested solely on the residents shoulders, which is what I am now. Suddenly I find myself in this new world without sick days.
Yes we still have sick days, but we might as well not. On inpatient, if I am sick, who is going to take care of my complex patients? Sure, the other residents are top notch and could manage, but deep down you still have this feeling that your patient's care would suffer if a new person were to be suddenly thrown without warning into all their health complexities. On outpatient, where I am now, there is no obligation to the patient. Most aren't actually "sick" and shouldn't even be there. Also even if I were to be gone, another resident just as good as me or better would see that patient that should have been mine. What has changed is that suddenly my absence ends up hanging my friends with all of my work. Suddenly, although I feel like crap, although I feel like laying in bed and dieing, there is this stabbing pang of responsibility and obligation. To my horror, I find myself slowly getting out of bed and placing one foot in front of the other towards that damn white coat ;P.
It's a trivial thing to write about, the change in your sick days from a student to a doctor...but it's not such a trivial thing when you are used to having that freedom and now you find that particular nicety barred from you by new found responsibility. Beware students...beware. ;P
Newbie Doc
