The challenging part is the hours. My first day was 11 hours in the hospital. My second was lighter, just a bit over 10. Now, I've worked a full 40-hour week, in healthcare, which is more that most of my classmates can say, so the actual "work" part of clerkship hasn't been hard at all to manage. Heck, because it's been so interesting, I come out of the hospital feeling energized. No, the trouble comes when faced with all the other challenges of life and having virtually no time to deal with them. In an 8 hour workday, if you sleep for 8 hours and travel/prep for work for 2 hours as I used to, that still leaves 6 hours or so to eat, do chores, run errands, and simply relax. With an 11 hour workday, that leaves only 3 hours.
Another big shift for me - I have a lot more domestic responsibilities now than when I worked in healthcare before medical school. Back then I wasn't living with my SO, though I am now. We also have a dog. So, for me that means a half-hour walk in the morning with the pup, and I like to spend at least half a hour to an hour catching up with my SO. You know, so she still knows that I'm alive and that we still live together. Important relationship stuff like that.
There's not much time for that sort of thing. Even after 10-11 hours at the hospital, the work doesn't stop there. I still have some EC responsibilities to deal with. I also have a fair bit of reading I'm expected to do each day. Those 3 hours of "free" time I have fall to less than 1 pretty quickly.
I've cut back on sleep a bit, down to a still-reasonable 6.5, though I hope to push that back up once I'm on some easier rotations.
The whole process has really made me want to go for a lifestyle-friendly specialty. It's not that I can't handle the long hours - to my surprise, I've actually been able to keep on top of things pretty well and as I said, I'm enjoying my time in the hospital. No, my fear is that I'll be able to think I can handle it, but really my life will be falling apart in ways I can't see or don't appreciate. My SO is very supportive and understanding, but 1 hour a day with her, usually while doing other work-related things, really isn't the kind of relationship either of us wants. It's also not what I'd consider a worthwhile life. Really, my fear is that I'll enjoy medicine so much, I'll forget about the rest of my life that I care about.
So, I'm trying to hold firm about crossing some interesting but high-workload specialties off my list. As much fun as working in medicine can be, it's no substitute for a happy, balanced life.
Maybe too late now, but my one piece of advice for every M3 is that it doesn't really matter how much you know, because the expectation is that you know nothing. That is not to discount the value of having a good clerk on the team, but rather to emphasize the lack of pressure you should put on yourself. Attitude and situational awareness is much much more important as a M3 than any knowledge you may or may not have. Picking up approaches and diagnostics to common conditions in each rotation, and what information the staff would want to have when receiving a consult were things I found useful going forward
ReplyDelete