Sick Days

I have been sick this week. At first I just thought I had bad hay fever and was over tired from a long week at work and a weekend packed with social activities. But by Sunday night I realized that I just felt like crap. So I called in sick.

What's the big deal? I am in residency so calling in sick can be fraught with peril. My work has to be covered by someone else. In theory, if we miss too much time we could have to make up the days or the year might not count towards accreditation. Luckily for me we have an extra resident on service right now and I had covered some of his work when he was out last week. So I knew the coverage would not be a big issue. That doesn't mean I did not feel a sense of guilt about staying home for a day.

Overall, medicine as a profession does not take kindly to people calling in sick. Logically, this makes little sense. As physicians we should know that coming in to work with illness and exposing everyone around us, including patients, makes little sense from a public health perspective. We should know that we are not at our best when we are sick and that clouded thinking can lead to adverse outcomes for patients. And we do know that rest is essential to getting well. It is what we advise our patients to do. But somehow this all can get lost in our culture where work reigns supreme above all else and where we feel a sense of obligation to provide for our patients no matter what.

I doubt that any of this will change anytime soon. I know that I am guilty of participating in the culture myself. After spending a day at home sitting on the couch, I dragged myself in yesterday and worked a full day, despite people telling me to go home early and rest because I looked awful.

How can we make changes? We have to start by acknowledging that it is okay to take time off to get better if we truly are sick and convincing our colleagues to do the same. And systems that provide sick coverage need to be in place to allow people to take the time they need without feeling guilty and that they are burdening their colleagues. This can be especially difficult in residency where it is residents on "elective" and "call free" months who get pulled in to cover for sick colleagues. It will take a systemic shift in attitude, but a new perspective on sick days would be healthy for our profession.