uugh! so fed up. hate this.... anyone else?

[kat82]

hi everyone- i just wanted to vent. please feel free to chime in. i am so fed up with this year. i have reached a point where i feel more often depressed than not. every annoying work situation seems 10000x more annoying than it would have like 5 months ago. i am sick of dealing with all of the ridiculous social BS on the wards. i find myself getting extremely flustered and bitter and resenting my patients and their families.

i am doing alot of off service rotations this year and find myself working with alot of self important overly confident interns who are really getting on my nerves. i feel them smirking at me when i appear the least bit stressed/annoyed.
anyway just needed to vent, phew! i feel a little better...

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[asmallchild]

It's stories like these that make me happy my preliminary year is chock full of electives. I couldn't imagine working 8 months of floors.

 

[Hard24Get]

I am cranky, too. I still like the patients, and can summon patience for their families, but BOY do my residents piss me off! I am off-service most of the year as well, so I guess that is part of it (culture shock). But still!If I am forced to go along with another stupid plan or ask a consult another stupid question I feel like a just might


But we are almost done!!!!

 

[roflcakes887]

realize that you are being exploited by attendings and your hospital for their profits and play the game.

then, you will be able to do the same in 10 years.

 

[dragonfly99]

kat,
it will be O.K.
Soon you will be a resident and things will be somewhat better
Put on your game face daily and just go for it. There are only 3 months left in your intern year.

 

[sparkly]

I know exactly how you feel. Especially when you're prelim, at this point in the year, you can't help but think "am I ever going to need to do this ever again?"

I am so impatient now, too. It sounds really bad, but I get mad internally when I have someone walking slowly in front of me or have to wait for them to move out of the way so I can get some forms. Don't get me started on pages where the person who paged you has no formulated question in mind.

Internship has really changed me- I used to be a much more go-with-the-flow sort of person. Now I just feel annoyed and stressed most of the time.

Can't wait for this to be over!

 

[ThinkTooMuch]

so why are interns treated like crap? I mean, the people treating interns like crap themselves were interns, some of them very recently so. Is it like revenge, haha your turn biatch, kinda stufff? I don't understand it really.

 

[dragonfly99]

What interns and residents have to do is inherently difficult, the learning curve is steep, and in general a lot of the other people in the hospital will not have patient for you, even if you have worked on that floor <1 month and they have been there for years. So you are never secure in that it's almost like getting a new job every month when you rotate to a new rotation. Also, interns and some residents just don't get enough sleep, and often have too much work to do in too little time, which makes people cranky. Interns also have to deal with a lot of patients and families who sometimes assume the intern is a student and/or ask "Are you a real doctor? You don't look old enough?!". This gets old real fast.

 

[guitarguy09]

so why are interns treated like crap? I mean, the people treating interns like crap themselves were interns, some of them very recently so. Is it like revenge, haha your turn biatch, kinda stufff? I don't understand it really.

Well, unfortunately that's how it is occasionally. Same thing as when you're a medical student and your residents/intern scut you out or have you do stupid things instead of being able to be put in actual learning situations. They were all med students in the not so distant past, yet they still do it. I suppose it's an unfortunate "right of passage", one that hopefully doesn't happen to everyone but inevitably will.

 

[dragonfly99]

Nurses also treat interns crappy sometimes because at times the intern is in the position of not being able to give the nurse what he/she wants (i.e. they want a sleeping pill to make the patient go to sleep, but it's not safe for that particular patient, etc.). Also, sometimes the nurses assume the intern doesn't know what he/she is doing, medically speaking, and will then give the intern a hard time. Sometimes it's true, but sometimes it's not.

Interns are also sometimes put into positions of having to do the impossible - for example, a nurse pages you to come sign some paperwork which she says must be done RIGHT NOW even though you, the intern, are already in the ER examining and writing orders for a newly admitted patient. You say no, but that you'll get to it ASAP, and then the nurse gets mad and says, "No, you need to come and do this RIGHT NOW or I'm going to 'write you up'" (whatever that means). Then a minute later you get a page from another nurse that the family of another patient (who you don't really know well at all, or know the specific prognosis for, that you are "covering" for another intern for the night but is not YOUR patient) is at the patient's bedside and wants to see you to discuss the plan of care for the patient and how he is doing. This is despite the fact that it's 10p.m. and you are not that patient's doctor during the day, and really don't know jack about him, except what he's in the hospital for, what medicines he is taking, and what to do if he gets sick overnight.

All these things are why people get sick of being an intern, and of intern year.

 

[sparkly]

+1 to what dragonfly99 just said. So true. In the beginning, you feel like you're fulfilling a role, but I have to say, i have now just ended up feeling like the ultimate scutmonkey.

I hear it gets better as you progress, though.

3 more cross cover overnight calls next month (shudder). The countdown continues...

 

[mdqueen]

Well people, aren't you glad it's almost over??? 3 more freaking weeks. i've lucked up lately w my residents and attendings being cool, but I cannot tell you how many time patients have assumed I'm a nurse, student or sitter. I guess the black skin throws them off. I guess they can't see the MD behind my name. I don't stress, I just correct them nicely. Being at the VA though...I'm either being hit on my patients or told I don't look like a "real doctor" whatever that means. I won't miss this at all, and I'm glad to move on to anesthesia. When patients pull that crap, I can say - "pick out a nice dream...."