And I Survived The Weekend On-Call!

Salam..

I'm back! And I survived the 41-hour weekend call without a scratch mark, another pyrexial episode or gastritis pain!

This weekend call was probably the one I would remember long in my medical career.. Why? Because it was a "Weekend with Dr O'Hare" oncall.. Everybody in Limerick Regional Hospital knows Dr O'Hare as a great physician, with his own likes and dislikes in medical practice.. He might not be people's favourite person - one reason or another - but nobody can argue his great ability in managing his patients..

I started off the weekend call on Friday night with a busy night.. We admitted quite a few.. In fact, I think we took in 17 patients all together, before the 'hand-backs'.. I was long gone before on Saturday morning before Dr O'Hare even arrived for his post-call ward round.. (I may have deliberately avoided to be in the ward round - BAD ME! I'm not a big fan of post-call ward rounds..)

After 24 hours of break, I stepped into the hospital again and started my second half of my oncall at 9am Sunday morning.. Alhamdulillah, it was not as busy as I had anticipated.. We kept going admitting patients, but we were never slumped with uncontrollable numbers to see.. I had a bit more hours than usual to sleep during the night, so I was a bit more fresh for Monday morning..

Also, Sunday morning, I had a small pep-talk by Dr O'Hare - talking about discussing patients with the oncall registrar and a few other tips.. In a way, I was glad that happened as it opened an opportunity window to work with Majella (Dr O'Hare's registrar) easier..

So, that was in summary the whole weekend in small few paragraphs..

Now, let us do a little mathematics :

Working on Friday (day job), 9 to 4 = 7 hours
Oncall on Friday night, from 4pm Friday to 9am Saturday = 17 hours
Oncall again from Sunday 9am to Monday 9am = 24 hours
Working Monday (day job), 9 to 5 = 8 hours
Total hours of work this weekend between Friday and Monday= 56 hours!

That includes two parts of a stretch of 24 hours and 32 hours!

Hey, that's my life! A doctor's life! Nobody knows the hours, but everybody expects doctors to be PERFECT and SHARP while during their job.. So, the next time you go to the hospital, take a good look at the human who is trying to keep you and all the patients happy and well, not the doctor who has to be perfect for you only!

Till we meet again.. Salam..