I wonder if you were getting hammered because it was a hospital using locums? The only place I worked that has needed to use locums on a regular basis can't keep psychiatrists, red flag there, and the patient load is horrendous.
The other inpatient units I work average about 8 patients although there are usually varying responsibilities such as CL or PHP and possibly an ED consult divided by the attendings but even with that its rarely more than 2 additional encounters each which is very manageable in an 8 hour day. As for lunch I usually scarf something down after I round, while charting, so not a leisurely experience but food none the less. One hospital has no weekend requirement and splits weeknight call 3 ways. The other requires 1 weekend a month with 2 days off during the week after your weekend and weeknight call split 4 ways. I feel inpatient can be more hectic but far less tedious than OP and has the opportunity to give a light day here or there when you can actually leave early. Fortunately or unfortunately if you have worked a unit for any length of time a significant number of patients will be known to you so not especially cumbersome even as a new admit.
To clarify, the inpatient units where I did locums were not ones where the doc had 16-20 patients per day. I was just saying I've heard of places like that. Once I was considering moving back to the metro Northeast area where I'm from, a saturated market, and I talked to the medical director of an inpatient unit there, and it had that kind of patient load. No thanks. Satisfying my mother's nagging about seeing me more often is not worth a life like that.
The busiest inpatient unit where I did locums was supposed to have 5 psychiatrists, and when we were all there, the maximum number of patients per day per doc was 12, but we often didn't quite have our max. With 12, I could be out by 5 if I really hustled. Unfortunately, when one doc was out, which happened for several weeks in the few months I was there, thanks to vacations and 2 other docs each having a death in the family, the max was 14, AND we were virtually guaranteed to be at our max every day, which was hell for me.
The "middle" unit in terms of busy-ness was a 16 bed unit, but there was a PA who could see some of the follow-ups. So I typically only saw about 9 per day, but I had to do all the admissions, so with a 16 bed unit, 4 admissions per day was not uncommon. Also, unlike the aforementioned hospital, this place ALWAYS filled all the beds overnight. So, whereas with the other place I could always at least hope for a light day, at this place, if I discharged 4 patients one day, I walked out of there knowing I'd have 4 admissions to do the next morning.
The lightest was only intended to be a half day of work. It was a small geriatric unit; I forget the actual number of beds but IIRC there were typically 5-7 patients. And being geriatric psych patients, most of them at any given time were just hanging out waiting for nursing home placement. Piece of cake.
