- The Challenge.
Sure, we can say that we are masters of airway or resuscitation or emergent presentations spanning all subspecialties, etc.. but I enjoy the challenge of not having all those subspecialties mastered. There's always something to read about and always something that I don't quite understand as much as I'd like to... Just when I start to understand it more, I get distracted by yet another unrelated case involving another specialty where I realize that I need to learn more about that one...
Endless learning, and always a variety of topics that are equally relevant to what I do. I don't get bored with the cases and certainly shouldn't ever get bored with the learning.
- Procedures.
Quick. Sometimes dirty. Instant gratification for my efforts. Variety! Other night? Intubation, followed by a bier block reduction on a bad boxers fracture. I had time so I even broke out the c-arm and got to play orthopod for a few minutes. I love the variety of cases and definitely the variety in procedures. All quick and all satisfying. Just the way I like it.
- Schedule.
Sure, it's mostly a negative. Then again, most of us have some element of control over how many shifts we work, a few days each month that we might want off, etc.. I like it. This month is random. Next month I'm requesting blocks of 5-6 shifts followed by blocks off so I can go hike in the mountains. Sure, working nights and weekends sucks, but I mean...c'mon.
- Social.
We're probably closer to our colleagues, nurses, techs than most other specialties. The ED environment complements a well formed teamwork mentality. I enjoy that. I enjoy relying on good nurses and knowing my colleague has things covered while I'm in a room doing a procedure or vice versa.
- Pajamas.
I mean...doh. Hell, I only considered specialties that gave me the option of wearing pajamas to work and took everything else off my list. There's no way in hell you're getting me to wear a tie and dress shoes every day like the medicine guys.
- Humor.
If you've got a twisted sense of humor, and most of us who work here do... It's an endless parade of things to laugh about or laugh at...
- Satisfaction.
I rarely leave a shift where I don't feel like I've worked hard and feel good about it. We always take two paths... Bitch incessantly about what pissed us off during the shift, but underneath it all... you probably handled a lot of really f'd up situations better than 99% of other people would have done and your "made a difference"/unit time ratio is probably a lot greater than most other specialties.
- Don't give a $hit.
I like being the underdog specialty. I like knowing that most other specialists secretly harbor a condescending opinion on us because we don't know as much about their own specialty as they do...without having any concept or appreciation of the fact that we know way more about the other specialties....than they do. It lends to situations where I enjoy surprising them and making them realize that we're not as dumb as they might think.
- Used car salesman.
Call me nuts but I enjoy getting someone on the phone to get a pt admitted. There's just such an art to it that I find it satisfies the small politician or lawyer that must live somewhere inside of me. It's really fun sometimes. Even more so for the soft admits.
