Family Med Hospital Week: The Waiting Game

After yesterday's long-day disaster I had high hopes that today would be different, that Dr. T would be on time. It didn't happen. We started the day at 7:00 a.m., saw one patient, then went to morning report before seeing the rest of our patients. Andrew and I had four patients to see, but I managed to finish by 10:00, the time that Dr. T had given Andie as the time to start rounding. We all met in the cafeteria at 10:00, but Dr. T didn't show up, so we all got a snack (yogurt for me since my throat's still sore). He called to say he'd be there in 20 minutes, but as 11:00 rolled around there was still no sign of him. By now the smell of lunch was getting to us so we decided to get lunch early. I'll say one thing about Plaza: the food selection there is (compared to JPS, TSH, and Driscoll); the entree of the day was curry salmon or shrimp creole. Most of us got the shrimp creole; it was spicy, but really good =) But still, even after lunch, no one showed up. Dr. T simply sent a text message that read, "Delayed." How much of a delay? He didn't say, and we didn't know, so we just sat downstairs and talked, waited, or (toward the end) napped on the table. Doctors and residents passing by easily recognized us as "Dr. T's posse" because of how worn out and impatient we looked. Andie in particular looked like she was about to lose it; waiting around is not her style and Mani even told her flat-out that she had a Type A personality. If only he knew that Andie came close to losing her temper on him earlier in the day for keeping his progress notes on him instead of leaving them in the chart like he was supposed to. Still, by the 1:00 pm rolled around, we all agreed that waiting 3 hrs was just too much. I even had time to slip away and dictate on my patient from last night. Mani had to dictate one of Haris' patients from last week, but he took a longer time to dictate than I did. Thank goodness Terrell gave us some dictating experience.

By chance, we saw Pauline and Stephanie in the cafeteria and they told us they saw Dr. T "giving a lecture" in the classroom. So we all went up there only to find out that the "lecture" was more of a meeting. Oops...Instead we hung out in the classroom where Kyle and another intern were chatting about their psych experiences at TSH. I told them that my group had taken the TSH patients to the State Fair, and they were shocked. "You took psych patients to the State Fair?!" asked Kyle. Hey, I didn't think I did too bad a job of supervising =P Finally at 1:30 Dr. T got us to start rounds, then told us to go on ahead to the 3rd floor while he got something to eat at the cafeteria. I thought we'd only have to wait about 30 min at most. Instead...another hour wasted standing against the wall, looking like (in the words of several nurses) people lined up before a firing squad. I didn't bring anything to read so I was soooo bored. Finally he showed up and we began seeing patients, but around 5:00 pm, Andie told those of us who were not staying late (it was Mani tonight) to go home, or else we'd be in for another long night. So we did.

*whew* So this is what happens when the hospital is full of patients and the FP resident leaves the team for a week to take his boards. I got to admire Andie for taking over the role of an intern very well; this was supposed to be a laid-back PCP for her, but instead, she's running around double-checking our work and pushing Dr. T to sign orders and see his other patients (he likes to chat). Kind of reminiscent of Fallon pushing my lab partners and me to get serious whenever we didn't feel like dissecting =P Those were the days. Still, it worked.

I've started taking some of my dad's leftover amoxicillin for my throat (1st line treatment for strep, after all), and while I haven't noticed too much improvement, I haven't had a fever all day and it doesn't hurt as much to swallow. My tonsils still look like crap though. Andie originally said I could have Dr. T take a look at my throat and write a prescription, but after the 4 hr wait today I knew that it was out of the question. Instead, I made an appointment with Student Health tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully Dr. T will let me go early so I can get checked.