Q for EM residents and attendings

[Barry Otter]

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What is the one thing that you most dislike about being in EM? Is it the seekers, several of which you're guaranteed to see in any given shift? Is it the fishbowl aspect of EM? Having to deal with consultants with a bad attitude? Not having a circadian rhythm? Fighting with medicine to admit patients?

Or is it answering questions like these?

 

[EctopicFetus]

What is the one thing that you most dislike about being in EM? Is it the seekers, several of which you're guaranteed to see in any given shift? Is it the fishbowl aspect of EM? Having to deal with consultants with a bad attitude? Not having a circadian rhythm? Fighting with medicine to admit patients?

Or is it answering questions like these?

Hilarious.. Anyways IMO it is dealing with patients with unrealistic expectations. Like "Ok im in the ED and I need an MRI"! Having to tell them they arent gonna get one is always a pain. Sadly people think going to the ED will speed up something and it usually doesnt.

 

[southerndoc]

In my case it's going home. I love my job so much that I never want to leave, just like my internal medicine and surgery colleagues.

 

[beyond all hope]

Usually the patients are pretty reasonable, seekers and psychoes excluded. It's the families that often are more aggressive about being sure that you do everything and can be really obnoxious about it.

 

[NinerNiner999]

It's the smell - at times a mix of Ben-Gay and Butt, at other times, the unkempt aroma of homeless alcohol and maggots. Ahhh....

 

[basementbeastie]

It's the smell - at times a mix of Ben-Gay and Butt, at other times, the unkempt aroma of homeless alcohol and maggots. Ahhh....

hey!!! i have worked hard to cultivate that personal aroma....

 

[The White Coat Investor]

I don't like nights. I understand it is a part of my life and I knew it going in and I like the actual night work, but I hate what it does to the rest of my life.

 

[roja]

The (thankfully rare in my institution) pain-in-the-ass consult that thinks that *any* consult from the ED is a CYA thing and has nothing to do with *gasp* actually providing the best care for the patient. Which will usually launch me into a deep and pissy tirade about how if they would like me to consult them on every CYA-er, then I probably have about 15 more consults for them instead of the one. And then I feel small and petty and yet vindicated at the same time...


*sigh*

(although this attitude netted one of my favorite stories- a well known pissy IM resident in our hospital was taking report from an attending on a stable 40 year old stable stable stable not-actively bleeding GI bleed. There were about 55 patients in the ED with about 4 or 5 ICU boarders. She was grilling him and giving him attitude because he wasn't giving her 'enough detail' about all the labs, etc. and being a total b*tch. So he asked her to come down. And then proceeded to do bedside rounds on EVERY PATIENT in the ED. All 55 of them. bedside. And at the end, explained that this was why he was not going to take the time to read off stable lab values on a stable patient.