Estoy soplando burbujas.

Had a good first week back. Nothing special happened, no fantastic cases to report. No, I wasn’t even in the operating room. I’m in the ICU for another month so was expecting more of the same from last month. Prior to going to New Zealand, I was very unimpressed with my rotation. Was not learning anything new and my duties required no thought process to complete. To put it mildly, I was struggling... a bit.  My last day before vacation I walked into the hospital to the sound of “76 Trombones”. Granted it was just in my head, but I’m sure my knees kicked an inch higher than usual anyways. So, naturally, I was expecting more of the same upon return. However, this past week staffing was short in the units. There was one Attending and one Fellow to cover both Trauma ICU and Surgical ICU. They would come touch base with me first thing in the mornings and then leave me to it! Understanding that I would successfully perform all plans and trust that I would communicate any concerns. And it ended up being a very busy week with no room in the inn... The trauma ICU gets capped. Once the beds are filled up, that’s it. Not the case with the SICU. When my beds were filled, my patients just overflowed to empty beds in other ICUs or post op patient’s stuck in the post anesthesia care unit. It just means I end up traveling all over the hospital to round and check my patients. And then we all get caught in a game of musical beds. Play it long enough and by the end of the day you wonder if you actually took care of any patient or was all your time just spent pushing them around. So in short, to be allowed the freedom to handle the unit and at the end of the day sign out with clear plans (on most patients) and everyone still breathing I feel thankful my team was comfortable enough to leave me alone. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go rogue. Any big change I enacted in a patients care I made sure to shoot a text to the fellow with what I was doing. Both so he wouldn’t be surprised when rounding back through the SICU again, and also to give him the opportunity to veto me, which he never did. And at the end of the week, my Attending actually turned to me and thanked me.

But now, it’s a new week, and a new team. After being away for the weekend, which is always welcome, but plans tend to get lost with all the change in call shifts over the weekend. It was frustrating to not be given any basic plans when I arrived in the morning. And then the new Attending didn’t round until late afternoon. It took all day to pull together plans on some of my patients. Left time for a moderate amount of thumb-twiddling. And I’m reminded again of why I’d rather just go to the operating room. At least I have my own plans now for going into tomorrow.

Much Love.