Fatigue

So I'm going to warn you in advance this post is a whine. I don't typically whine on my blog so you can't complain....(rant yes, go off on tangents double yes but whine no) To those of you who I whine on the phone a lot to *Sorry* But hey you should be used to it!

I'm just plain tired. This month I've been on the floor and it has been my most trying month thus far as a resident which is sad b/c I actually like the wards in peds only. I'd always rather be in outpatient practice but one of the ways I knew I wanted to be a pediatrician is because I enjoyed the floor in peds. Anyway I digress. So we're supposed to split the day either work days or nights with approximately 30 min of overlap in each direction so abt 13 hr days. So why do we end up working more like 15 hr days. Then there are these crazy expectations about how long it should take to see patients, talk to parents and write your notes in the morning. 9 min per patient and that does not acct for transition time from room to room washing hands etc. Trust me it's not humanly possible not even for superwoman. so I just came off nights and guess what suprise suprise....I've got insomnia. So I was on night shift last night rounded this morning and came up slept for 4 hours (paged in between) yeah for some reason the nurses can't read a call schedule so they page you even when you're off. They seem real miffed when you don't call them back and when you call them back and tell them to call the triage pager....So it's 3 am and I'm sleepy but I can't go to sleep b/c I'm not quite tired enough to fall asleep. Oh yeah and I shoulda slept all day yesterday post call and all day sunday b/c guess who gets to work 20 days with no day off? I do! I do! and then drive 4 hours away post-call. Yeah I love my job I really do.