Today was the busiest day yet at my new job. I’ve been here for nearly 6 months, and today was a doozy. Our ED has the best system, frankly, for doc scheduling I can imagine (that is financially viable). Generally, there’s a new doc starting every 2-2.5 hrs, and the new, fresh doc picks up all the really ill and injured new patients; those being replaced by the new doc spend the next few hours finishing up the workups for the patients they picked up during those first two hours. The remainder of the day is spent in our fast care area, seeing the mildly ill.
I started at noon, and by 2PM I had 17 new patients, all of whom were sick. My previous record had been 16 in 2.5 hrs, so it was busy. With 5 minutes left in my first two hours, our ED was overloaded and we went on ‘Medicine Diversion’, meaning we were closed to ambulance traffic that was non-traumatic. (There’s a big political problem with going on Trauma diversion, as we’re one of two trauma centers in town). Ten minutes later we went on trauma diversion. The place filled up so quickly it was amazing.
I spent the next 4.5 hrs re-evaluating, looking at films, awaiting test results, etc, and got those patients cared for (several were very ill, and only 5 went home). Then I finally got out to the fast care area. And now I’m tired.
Still, it’s an interesting contrast to my last job, where after work I was worn out, and remarkably angry, after nearly every shift.
