M3-- WEEK TWENTY EIGHT

This is how I spent the majority of my working week:

(studying my text book in our L&D work room)

There were just too many students for the few babies that were delivered! I saw very few patients throughout the week... Friday, I had the opportunity to take call. For labor and delivery, that means coming in at 5:30am or so as usual and then working through the night until after rounds the next morning around 9am. A 28ish hour shift was a first for me! I said g'nite to T Thursday night and the next time I saw him was Saturday when he got home from work at 4pm. Isn't that weird! As weird as it is, I was super excited to work that many hours straight because I really want to experience as much of this rotation as possible! I was mentally ready to run around the hospital all night long. However, Friday night was slow, so I ended up sleeping in the call room almost as long as I do on a typical night at home!

one of the call rooms!

When I was given the opportunity to head to bed Friday night, I took it! Because, you never know how long you'll have! A patient could walk in the doors minutes later and you'll be called and woken up. It was really nice that I was able to sleep because it meant that my whole Saturday wasn't wasted catching up. However, I was totally wired when I headed to bed.. so I ended up studying and ditzing around on the internet for an hour or so. Throughout the night, I set my alarm to go off every hour so that I could roll over and look at the patient list on my iPad. That way, I was able to keep tabs on patients and not be awoken surprised in the middle of the night (or be forgotten about during something exciting!)

hanging in the call room

I have 2 more nights of call this week.. and I'm going to do a few things different. Last week I brought a tooth brush and deodorant so I could freshen up in the morning and slept in my scrubs so that I could jump out of bed if I was called. For the record - I did change into clean scrubs before I rounded on my patients in the morning :) The call room was frigid! So this week I'll bring a sweat shirt. I almost slept in my white coat I was so cold!  I'll also bring shampoo and makeup remover this week so that if I get that much uninterrupted time again, I can shower :) Oh! and a sports bra to sleep in! That's my new list to pack. I'll also bring plenty of snacks and my phone charger again.

The final thing I'll mention today is that after a night of call, you get a post-call day. Which is essentially a day off! It's a totally bizarre day though.. because the sun is shining high in the sky as you are walking to your car to head home and to bed. It's the strangest feeling! You also have to have a strategy for the day.. do you sleep for a few hours and then barrel through the day so that you can still get to sleep that night? Or do you sleep most of the day? Do you make any plans for your day off? Or keep it open and flexible?

I'm looking forward to this upcoming week and I'm hopeful that I will get to be a part of more deliveries!

xo,
Krista