Worst Day as a Resident

[scab]

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A lot of people have posted their "Best Day"
Please post your worst days here...

Yeah yeah yeah

misery loves company.. well i crave it right about now

 

[edmadison]

PGY-2 NICU "senior" resident.

Within 10 minutes of arriving at 6am, I had two sets of 24-week twins within 90 minutes. One baby died in the DR. This was followed by a sick 27 weaker and a 30 weaker. Never did do rounds that day. I think I had lunch at about 9pm.

That's closely rivaled by the 34 week former premie with necrotizing enterocolitis who was crashing hard and had virtually no IV access. I distinctly remember the nurse asking me if I wanted to turn off my dopamine drip to give the kid his calcium bolus. For about 10 hours it took two ICU nurses the Neo and me to keep this kid alive.

Ed

 

[scab]

That is one bad day indeed!
but you got thru it - Kudos Ed

 

[ocean11]

PGY-1

In MICU right now,


Lots of acutely sick patients, know nothing about ventilators. Feel stupid infront of my team 24/7 and know less than the nurses. Don't really love my team, but could be worse...

Just don't think this is for me! A Q3 schedule... 30 hours per call... *(&)*(&

🙁🙁🙁🙁

 

[OldPsychDoc]

"Dr. PsychDoc, the Medical Examiner would like to speak with you about one of your patients."

 

[mig26x]

PGY-1

In MICU right now,


Lots of acutely sick patients, know nothing about ventilators. Feel stupid infront of my team 24/7 and know less than the nurses. Don't really love my team, but could be worse...

Just don't think this is for me! A Q3 schedule... 30 hours per call... *(&)*(&

🙁🙁🙁🙁

dont worry, I think we all have been there!!! It will get better.

 

[CuriousKat]

December 31st of my intern year. I'm scheduled to start a month of trauma surg at a major level 1 trauma center. I'm an off-service/non-GS intern.

Anyway, the trauma PA decides to quit mid/late December. My co-intern (who is categorical GS) quits on December 31st. All of the surgical services are running on skeleton crews because half the residents and staff are out on vacation from December 31-January 4/5 so no one can really help cover.

I will spare you the details but I didn't leave the hospital for a week. I'm still haunted by the experience to this day.

 

[lapooh]

December 31st of my intern year. I'm scheduled to start a month of trauma surg at a major level 1 trauma center. I'm an off-service/non-GS intern.

Anyway, the trauma PA decides to quit mid/late December. My co-intern (who is categorical GS) quits on December 31st. All of the surgical services are running on skeleton crews because half the residents and staff are out on vacation from December 31-January 4/5 so no one can really help cover.

I will spare you the details but I didn't leave the hospital for a week. I'm still haunted by the experience to this day.

Wow ! You have my sympathies. That must have been one hell of a week.

 

[psybrdelic]

Mine is more than just a day...

I had been working nights, 5PM to 7AM, for three weeks. One Thursday, at 7AM I was informed that my contract would not be re-newed because "I wasn't a good fit."

One week later I was in a major MVA, taken to my hospital as a trauma. Need I say more? (If I do, just imagine your residency friends cutting your clothes off, giving you a DRE, putting in a Foley, calming you down, CT scanning you, checking your entire body.)

I've been the subject of all gossip for six weeks. People, literally, come up to me, rub my shoulder, give me that sympathetic look, and say sorry.

A bad day ain't crap, I'm hoping for one good day, just one.

 

[Winged Scapula]

That sucks, psybrdelic. I wish you the best.

 

[HansHolbein]

You, sir/madame, have officially ended this thread with the worst possible day.

Mine is more than just a day...

I had been working nights, 5PM to 7AM, for three weeks. One Thursday, at 7AM I was informed that my contract would not be re-newed because "I wasn't a good fit."

One week later I was in a major MVA, taken to my hospital as a trauma. Need I say more? (If I do, just imagine your residency friends cutting your clothes off, giving you a DRE, putting in a Foley, calming you down, CT scanning you, checking your entire body.)

I've been the subject of all gossip for six weeks. People, literally, come up to me, rub my shoulder, give me that sympathetic look, and say sorry.

A bad day ain't crap, I'm hoping for one good day, just one.

 

[saanjana]

That's awful. I really do hope it gets better....


So I can't post here, because my "worse day" is going to sound like a joke in comparison

 

[psybrdelic]

The worst part is I abbreviated it...there's more.

 

[stiz]

curious: what happens when your contract isn't renewed?

they released you after a year or two of residency?

thanks. i hope things are working out for you.

 

[pedidoc]

I can only imagine how awful it would be to have to submit to your fellow residents examining you. My worst day as a resident fortunately only involved tremendous stress and getting yelled at a lot. The ICU attending said it was the worst day he had ever had. We had seven oscillators and just me and him managing it all. He was trying to get a line into a kid in shock and he told me just to keep everyone else alive until he was done. I had a kid on the other side of the ICU with a pnuemo who needed a chest tube (which I had never done before) and he was oscillating the whole time. I had another kid seizing and another kid bleeding out (liver transplant).

The attending said at 7AM the next day that he sure was glad I was there, but I had the blackest cloud he had ever seen and he had been practicing for 10 years. I was just glad the ECMO didn't start til after I left. Hooray, nobody died on my shift!!

 

[dragonfly99]

curious: what happens when your contract isn't renewed?

they released you after a year or two of residency?

thanks. i hope things are working out for you.

Then you have to try to find another residency. Some people manage to do this. If you can't, then would have to switch careers because you usually can't get work as a physician unless you have completed residency...some who have done a couple years in something like IM or family practice and have a state medical license might manage to find something, but would likely have lot of job insecurity (i.e. as soon as the place finds someone who has completed residency the partially-trained doc might get laid off).

 

[psybrdelic]

Then you have to try to find another residency. Some people manage to do this. If you can't, then would have to switch careers because you usually can't get work as a physician unless you have completed residency...some who have done a couple years in something like IM or family practice and have a state medical license might manage to find something, but would likely have lot of job insecurity (i.e. as soon as the place finds someone who has completed residency the partially-trained doc might get laid off).

moonlighting may be an option temporaily

 

[Runtita]

This isn't much compared to the previous worst days, but my worst day was after a run of Q3 call after a night with no sleep and the joy of clinic in the AM.

My fellow intern came in and passed along the news that one of our colleagues had just died that morning from pancreatic cancer. I got through morning rounds and then, out of nowhere, burst into tears during rounds discussion. I just couldn't stop crying, had to cancel clinic because my damn eyes just wouldn't stop leaking.

 

[ocean11]

Done the ICU finally.... unfortunately, I was so sick in my last two weeks I forced myself to go. I didn't want anyone else to have to take my calls so I took them sick.
- felt stupid infront of my team 24/7
- never yelled at, but made to feel like a complete ***** 24/7 by fellow/more senior residents

Going in was torture, DAILY torture. Presenting plans was torture, presenting cases was torture. The rest of my rotations were great and I have not had any bad evaluations... but this will most certainly be my first... and I'm worried that things will go downhill from here.... this rotation has certainly taken my soul and crushed it!🙁

Tomorrow is a new day... and I'm going to work really hard on my new rotation and try to put this &*^*& behind me 🙂

 

[KluverB]

Done the ICU finally.... unfortunately, I was so sick in my last two weeks I forced myself to go. I didn't want anyone else to have to take my calls so I took them sick. ...

Isn't our system great? I'm sure the ICU patients, who are doing all-so-well, appreciate all our hard efforts, and then we go on to expose them to a silly thing like a little cold, or flu, etc etc. What's a little ARDS on top of whatever else may be ailing them?