home call!

[houseelf]

I'm CAUTIOUSLY excited about the rotation for the next two months of home call cardiovascular surgery!!! We've never had it before, but it sounds interesting. However, when my dh called his fellow for details about the new service that begins today, he was still operating at 8:30 p.m. . I'm hoping that this was an anomaly and that it is a relatively quiet service.



Oh by the way, we are forever done with Transplant and SICU!!!! Woo Hoo! His future rotations will be mostly general surgery with only a smattering of vascular, plastics, and pediatrics interspersed. This should make hubby happier at work. Yippee!



It is the little things in life worth celebrating.

Kelly

Wow...home call???? That is awesome, Kelly. I hope that he does end up having an easier month! I've never heard of home call during residency before..is this a new thing at U of MN?



Kris
Time is a Dressmaker, Specializing in Alterations!

[houseelf]

No, apparently other specialties have home call on occasion, it is rare for a specialty like gen surgery to have it because of the inherent urgency of many medical conditions.



But let me say, if this weekend is any indication on how the next two months will go, home call SUCKS. He was at the hospital "rounding" until 6:30 on Saturday night. We had plans to go out and celebrate his birthday, but let's just say that he was not in the mood to be out amongst the general public. On Sunday, he went in from 6:30 until 3:30 and came home in the middle of a raucous playdate. It seems like he gets a little edgy with the start of each new rotation, especially if it is at a new hospital. Somehow, I have managed to be very zenlike and philosophical throughout all these changes. I guess that I realize that this too shall pass.



Kelly




Edited by: kmbsjbcgb at: 3/5/02 10:20:24 am

Kelly -

Reading your two posts provided me with a giggle - it was the "before" and "after"! I must admit that I was rather skeptical when you said that it might be a good rotation!

But we should be positive - maybe it will get better!! Personally, I am very skeptical of this "home call" business - my husband keeps telling me that the fourth and fifth years will be better b/c there is a lot of home call. However, you are usually senior your fourth and fifth year. . .and he is senior this month on transplant. . .and they paged him every fifteen minutes Saturday night. I don't know. . .I will keep an open mind and keep positive thoughts for Sean!

Not to mention, "cardiovascular" and "not bad" just don't fit together! That is like saying "easy" and "thesis" Ha ha.

[houseelf]

Yup, that beeper has become the ball and chain that he carries 24/7. My dh can't relax. Nor can he get out of his "hospital mentality" while he is at home. We are only a few days in to a two month rotation and I can feel the tension growing. I'm trying my hardest to keep upbeat, but he is not himself. I know that I need to empathize and try to be a supportive wife, but I don't want to let his bad spirits get me down. I think that besides this being a bad rotation, there is no end to residency in sight. He is definitely in the hump. Meanwhile, I'm starting the slow climb out of the hump. After all, Spring is just around the corner and I live to be outdoors.



UGH!!! How does on manage to be optimistic and self-reliant and an emotional stronghold at the same time?



Kelly

That stinks, Kelly. I'm sorry that it didn't work out to be a quieter month....maybe this will mean though that we'll get to chat on the phone a lot? There's always a silver lining!! hehehe.



Seriously, Thomas had "home call" during fellowships 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off...and it meant that everywhere that we went we were paged...sometimes we'd have to leave the grocery store in the middle of shopping so that he could go in to the hospital....I hated it.



We went out on Friday night for the first time in ages and while we were at Applebees, he was paged every 5 minutes...I'm not kidding...I started feeling ticked off because we couldn't even finishe a conversation. Every time he was paged he was running outside because he couldn't hear in the restaurant.....we ended up walking through the mall later with him mostly with the cell phone attached to his ear....That will teach us to go out when he has home call again! (At least he didn't have to go in though!!)



I'm with you on this.....Here's hoping it will be a short, short month!!!



Kris
Time is a Dressmaker, Specializing in Alterations!

[houseelf]

Six days into this rotation and I have come to the conculsion that "home call" is a complete misnomer. He is gone at the hospital a lot of the time. Moreover, WE were woken up 5 times last night by his demonic pager. The good thing that came from this is that I'm much more empathetic about his work suddenly. The bad thing is that now we are BOTH exhausted and working on fumes. I was 40 minutes late to work today and the excuse of my hubby's job interfering with my job doesn't seem to fly. Luckily, I'm secreted away in my own office and no one seemed to notice, but still I hate this feeling or irresponsibility. I guess I'll chalk this up to doing what I have to do to get through the day.



Kelly