My pager: Putting things in perspective

I meant to write this post last week, but I kept putting it off. Anyway, I had that really crazy week, and as my husband pointed out, it wasn't a bad week, just a very busy one. I went to the beach on my day off, and while soaking in the sun, I was able to reflect on my week.

With a little distance, I could see that I was getting overwhelmed. What I really needed to do was take a few deep breaths and tick things off my to do list one at a time. It's easy to feel overwhelmed when my pager is going off every 30 seconds interrupting my routine. Coming from the ICU, I was used to returning pages right away, but I've learned that I don't always need to sprint to the nearest phone when my pager goes off on the wards. Sometimes I should take a few minutes and finish eating or the conversation I'm having with a consultant. About 99% of the pages I receive are not urgent at all. Most of the time it's the phone number of a nurse who wants to tell me that someone didn't eat any breakfast or would prefer ibuprofen over tylenol. With anything urgent, they text message me what I need to know immediately. After figuring that out, I've managed to avoid heartburn from gobbling up my lunch in the elevator and actually sit through a few conferences.

I'm on my last week of this wards block. Tonight will be my last overnight call for a few months because I'll be on a few specialty services (cardiology, oncology) that have different call schemes. While I like admitting all my own patients, I won't miss overnight call and how it screws up my sleeping schedule for days. I can't wait for next week because I start a whole month of primary care!