Not My Best Week
Another wildly insane day is under my belt. It's hard to say exactly why I left the office feeling so jittery and tense. It may have been the phone call that turned into a 30 minute conversation with a worried son of a new patient. It may have been my current patient who has lost her insurance and now is on Medicaid, which means that for some mysterious reason several of her medications are no longer being covered; suddenly the pharmacy is demanding authorization requests for even the most basic of medications.
It may have been the new patient I saw today who turned out to have multiple unforeseen issues. This particular patient discontinued their diabetes medication three years before and then proceeded not to seek medical care for three years. Today this person turned out to have a random blood sugar of 311. Surprise!
It doesn't help that I am still jetlagged. This past weekend I attended the ACP annual conference. This year it was held in Boston. I did not have the luxury of extra time to adjust to the three-hour time difference between Los Angeles and Boston either going or coming. The conference was good and I think I learned quite a bit, but it is very hard to get spoonfed lectures for 10 hours a day for three days running without losing your mind. No exaggeration; the lectures start at seven in the morning and run until 5:30 PM (with breaks, of course).
And there is more. Two weeks ago my father's cardiologist decided that he needed a catheterization to evaluate his aortic valve. The valve turned out to be functioning reasonably okay but he had a stenosis in his right coronary artery which required a stent placement. This meant that he had to spend the night in the hospital. Guess who spent the night with him? Yes, it was I. I was somewhat philosophical about this turn of events until I was told by the nursing staff that they have no arrangements made for family to spend the night with patients. This meant that I slept in two chairs, continually getting up to remind my father that no, he could not get out of bed to go to the bathroom.
This week I learned that two of our physicians will be taking medical leave somewhat urgently. I don't know the cause and I don't need to know. What I do know is that their patients have to go somewhere, and they will be distributed among the rest of us. Is it any wonder that I am giving serious thought to running away screaming?
I don't have a good way to end this jumble of thoughts. Consider it a therapeutic brain dump. I will be back soon, hopefully in a better mood.
Labels: Medicine, The Doctor's Life
posted by Dr. Alice at #
