Filling up the House

Friday, 9:30 am

"Well Doctor..." (whenever the chief of neonatology wants to banter, he calls me Doctor-we banter very well back and forth, much to the puzzlement of many of my co-residents who terribly misunderstand his great sense of humor). "you're not that busy this morning."

He wants to give us a lecture/tutorial this morning. I have raised a protest. I'm on call. The second year resident and I are covering the team, and thankfully she is here all day today.

The Chief is giving me a hard time. It's 9:30 am, and we've already admitted 2 new babies to the NICU, and Sarah is headed out in the ambulance to go pick up a newborn at a nearby hospital.

I kick into smart ass mode. "Well, I'm going to do my best to admit 7-10 babies today!! I guesstimate that we only have about 7 or 8 beds open right now. And I'm kind of in that invincible mood. I've been here a week. I have a 600 gram baby on an oscillator and a couple of kids who have other various troubling issues, a few more aren't really going to hurt!

He grins...

Friday 9:15 pm.
I am in a nearby hospital picking up a baby. This is our second trip here today. This will be our 6th admission in 12 hours.

I am NOT popular in the NICU. I hear mutterings of my black cloud returning... I also have a slight adrenaline rush every time my pager goes off. Since this am, we have been expecting a woman to deliver who is 23 weeks and 4 days pregnant. The parents want full resuscitation. I'm on the fence as to whether this is the right thing to do...

We arrive back to our NICU, baby/admission #6 in tow. "What's the rumor I hear your goal was to admit 7-10 kids today?" I can only grin. I fucking deserve it. Being a smart ass always gets me in trouble, and today I'm paying the price. It's non-stop. I'm tired. We haven't even done evening rounds.

I ask about the 23 and 4/7 baby. No word yet. Well, I profess, that will be admission number 7, then I've hit my goal for the day, and then I'm done.

Midnight. Orders from rounds are done.

3:30 am I go and look at the kids I've admitted today, and look at the babies I've been taking care of all month. It's just soothing watching sleeping babies..

I'm satisfied. And I make my way to my call-room.

My pager goes off at 6am. I don't even think, I grab my glasses and step into my clogs and start thinking what size tube I'll use to intubate this 23 and 4/7 baby. Is a 2.5 going to be too big? I'm in the hallway and I look to see what room the NICU code has been called to..

My page reads: "HI BRIAN! We're meeting in the medicine resident room and going for omelets. YUMMY! Hope you got some sleep last night. Come Join Us!" It's a page from Karin.

I page her back. I can get 15 more minutes of sleep or I can eat breakfast...

I vote for sleep.

Admission #7 didn't happen. For once, not hitting my goal is a good thing.