Welcome to More Misadventures in Surgery-land, Part 93479.
This is a completely true, unembellished word-for-word conversation that I had today with my attending while we were scrubbing into our first case.
ME
[avoiding eye contact, scrubbing furiously, completely silent]
DR. MEANIE BIKINI
So were you on call this weekend?
ME
Oh no, it was my golden weekend! I got to catch up on sleep and studying. And be outside in the sunshine! It was won--
DR. MEANIE BIKINI
[cutting me off]
How often are you guys on call?
ME
Oh, well, they're pretty nice to us - we only have weekend call.
DR. MEANIE BIKINI
That's not being nice to you, that's more like - there's too many of you guys, they don't know what to do with you. Sigh, they've changed this clerkship so much this year. You know, the only real way you learn how to manage surgical emergencies is by being on call. The clerkship is doing a real disservice to you by only having you be on call for two weekends. You don't get to learn anything. When I was a med student, we were at the hospital every other night. But I guess things have changed - I just hope your education doesn't suffer. Sigh. You should really try to take extra call if the opportunity presents itself. Not being on call isn't a "golden weekend" - it's a weekend where you don't learn. I'm serious. Call is very educational.
ME
Well, I would be more than willing to take call when you're on, especially since that would make the most sense, seeing how I round on your patients and all.
DR. MEANIE BIKINI
Oh, I don't take call.
ME
Oh. Um, hm. I'll try to find something else then.
---
A little bit of me wonders how much of that is like the stories our parents tell. You know, the "when I was your age, I used to walk to school in the snow, barefoot, uphills both ways" kind of stories. I definitely believe that she was a super hardcore med student who probably didn't sleep and didn't need to eat, because she is Intense City. But I also have to believe that she's human, and understands that it's not surgery on the brain, all the time. I wish she would recognize that not everyone needs to learn the way she learned. And that not everyone is programmed to function that way. Change is good. Progress is good. Sleep is good.
