Time Flies

It is hard to believe it is the middle of November already! Such is life, I suppose, when working really long days with tons of cases to deal with. I am more than halfway through a 2-month block of surgicals right now at our main hospital. This is definitely the roughest section of my schedule this year and it is wearing me down. On one hand I am "in the groove" in terms of rolling with the schedule and getting my cases done. On the other hand, it is a long stretch to work at such high intensity and the burnout starts to set in after about the 5th week.

When I think about how many patients cases I have seen, it is pretty mind-blowing. Sometimes clinicians call and ask, "do you have results on Mrs. Smith's biopsy?" They seem shocked when I have no idea who Mrs. Smith is. If she has a rare presentation or an awful diagnosis I can often remember who it is once they tell me some history. But if Mrs. Smith had a standard GI biopsy that showed nothing, I have to look it up with the medical record number. It is just a different way of caring for patients. The resident on the other end may have a handful of patients that they know well. I have stacks of "patients" that I know 1-2 sentences of history for and am constantly trying to turn over cases.

I am looking forward to December when I get some elective/vacation. The temptation after all of this is to do very little on elective, but at the same time we are expected to use the time to fill in gaps in our education. It will be nice to do some work at a more relaxing pace though.