The Rack

It's been a rough couple of months for us.  Seems like we go from work to Bode to back to work with some sleep speckled  in between.  My wife gets up at 4 in the morning, goes to work, and depending on the day gets home around 6 to 8 at night.  It doesn't matter how easy the rotation is Bode makes it a tough internship, although I wouldn't change a thing it's a rough time when we get a day off in fourteen.  I suppose if another doctor, an older doctor were to read this he would laugh and tell me how it he or she had it a lot tougher, maybe they did, but as a friend of mine put it, "internship is tough for many different reasons and hours is only one of them". 
The powers that be are slowly dialing down the number of hours the interns can work around the country.  They think this will somehow save litigation, save lives...maybe...I think the people pulling the strings would be surprised at the majority response from those they are "saving" from all these extra hours.  The truth is that there will never be another time in our lives where we have such a safety net of senior residents and attendings to catch us before we fall, to catch our patients before we drop them.  If there is ever a time for a doctor to make mistakes and learn that time is now.  We have 3 measly years that prepare us to fly on our own, to learn knowledge that has taken centuries to accumulate.  Those of us who feel that weight on our shoulders look at these changes the way our attendings do...as handicaps stunting our growth.  As a medical student hearing talk of these hour changes I often laughed as the doctors whined about how it would hurt us.  To myself I thought, "Pshhh, hurt YOU is more like it, when we HAVE to go home, who is going to do all the scut work you normally count on us doing".  Only now I realize the scary truth to that question I asked myself, the answer is no one will do it.  As a student I looked at the medical world without responsibility, I looked at my family and friends as my only loyalty and responsibility.  For me residency isn't just rough because of "hours" or the "sad stuff", it's tough because in realizing that I will one day be "on my own" I suddenly discovered a responsibility to my patients both present and future, a responsibility that pulls me by the arm in one direction while love of my family and friends pulls me in another.  Sometimes you feel like you can't make gains at one without loosing ground on the other, my greatest fear is that I would let one slip through my hands which are knuckled-white at the moment.

Newbie Doc