The Wards – Day 9

Today is my day off. I have another on Friday. After that I go about 12 days or so without another one. Yesterday was the “mini call”. We didn’t do too badly, though unfortunately most of my pages came at 3 pm or later ensuring that the workload would go well past the time when my team was off the clock (6 pm). We ended up taking 4 new patients and 1 new consult. I admitted 2 other patients to the ICU team. When I left at about 9 pm last night, we had about 12 patients on our board. Some of them should go home today in my absence. Which will be nice.

Other than that, I woke up at about 11 am today (ahhhh) and drove down to the Harvester in Tacoma for some breakfast. Then I ran a few errands and got my hair cut. (Exciting, I know). Finally, I’m home and gearing up the big hoops game tonight – Department of Medicine versus the Emergency Medicine Department. You know how I hate all those ER pages? Well here’s my (and the other medicine residents’) chance to get ‘em back. We played back in November and it was fun. Everyone took it pretty seriously. It was funny, though, when “Rowdy” Rod, a colleague of mine, went out and bought purple shirts and colored head bands for us to wear during the game. (The ER docs at our hospital all wear purple scrubs while they’re working and different color arm bands for whatever team they are with that day – we call them the Barney Brigade – they look quite foolish) – so we came out like some mock-ER squad. We won the first set of games and took home the trophy (yes, there’s a trophy – a little Dr. Guy with a basketball bobble-head and a plaque that says DEM vs. MOD champs [DEM = Department of Emergency Medicine and MOD = Medicine Officer of the Day (which is the official title of the medicine resident on call]). They were good games. The ER guys have a resident who played undergrad at BYU. He’s a little older and out of shape now, but he’s still big and knows how to play. Our best player is the chief resident. (But I like to think I contribute…)

Anyway, we’re all fired up to play again and defend our trophy. So root for me out there tonight, in my purple UW T-shirt and green headband, running around like a vintage version of Boy’s Club Mick (only without the horrific carpet and accompanying ankle injury – hopefully). I miss the old college days when I would play pick up hoops for about three hours a day…Ah, to be young again.