Being on call stories

[AngryTesticle]

I hear that. Ours is listed online or I guess you can get it by calling the operator. We have text paging, which has some good benefits to it, although some are some people who can't figure it out, and spend an extra two minutes using the phone-based paging system even though they are sitting at their computer. Everytime I get a page with only a phone number on it I curse out loud. Every page should include the phone number, who is calling, and why. Not just "x63412 Bill RN"

Yeah, ours is listed online too which makes it even more frustrating to receive a page that should've been directed elsewhere.

As for getting a page with just a phone number...this delves into some interesting paging psychology.

Situation #1:
Page reads - "Will the slides for the specimen we submitted today be out for review?"
Me - What a ******* question. I'm so tempted to not answer. But I guess I'll answer this anyway.

Situation #2:
Page reads - "blah blah blah rude page blah blah blah...callback # 23732"
Me - Go f*ck yourselves. DELETE. Moving on...

Situation #3:
Page reads - "39482"
Me - Oh ****, this may be important. I think I have to answer this to see what this is about.

Situation #3 is the worst especially if it is a clinician calling about a patient. I would appreciate a heads up and I only ask that page has the name of the patient so that I can at least look it up. It's not like clinical medicine where I have all the patient info memorized. But if they only leave a number, I call back and it's some bonehead asking about some random case. Like I remember?!? And they expect me to know the histo findings off the top of my head.

Sorry buddy, med school ended many months ago...I'm not your med student bitch that you can push around anymore. I don't have to know all of my patients inside and out and memorized. Kiss my ass.

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[deschutes]

So I've been on surg path call evenings and weekends this week.

M-F 5-7:30 I am first contact point for late frozens, donor liver/kidney evaluation and any specimen-related queries. Oh, and explanted liver tissue banking, which is a pain and thank goodness I haven't had to deal with yet.

Got paged one night at 10pm, a donor liver had become available and ETA for evaluation was 5am. Many late-night phonecalls later, by the time the biopsy physically arrived it was 7:30am and pretty much melded into the regular day.

Weekend call involves all those as well as weekend autopsies (until 3pm Sunday) and being a glorified secretary babysitting any rush biopsies (our histology cutting room is off-site) or BALs.

I was supposed to go in at 9am today for an autopsy (my first one in residency) on a patient who was to be taken off life-support late yesterday, but the PA just called and said the patient apparently hasn't died yet. Might happen later today, who knows.

 

[yaah]

That happens here a lot of the time with surgery. Get paged at like 10pm "We are going to have a frozen in about 45 minutes." 45 minutes later, patient has just been moved to the room and the surgeon isn't even there yet. 2 more hours later then they get the frozen, and get upset when the staff isn't there to read it RIGHT AWAY (by now it is after midnight).

 

[deschutes]

Saturday, 7:30am Pt undergoes biopsy
10am I get a call from clinician asking to be paged with the results.

...approaching cut-off time, specimen has not arrived at the lab...

...Trackback through unreadable signatures without pager numbers...

...finally I reach someone in interventional radiology who says the specimen for permanents is still sitting in the OR refridgerator for Monday.

 

[deschutes]

Anyone else on call this July 4th?

I just had a very American dinner of meatloaf and a malt and am so very drowsy now....