The late intern

One of my most hated rotations in internship was my ER rotation. I dreaded each shift with every fiber of my being. I'm not sure why I hated it so much. I think I'm not a fan of shift work. I also hated the fact that every patient was new to me.... I like developing a relationship with my patients and the longer I know them, the better.

I started out the rotation doing night shift, which wasn't so bad because there were a lot of lacerations to suture, which I enjoyed. However, on day shift all the lacs went to urgent care.

To add insult to injury, interns had longer shifts than anyone. Attendings and med students had eight hour shifts. Residents had nine hour shifts. But for some reason, interns had eleven hour shifts. It was horrible.

On one of my last shifts, I was so depressed about the whole thing that I intentionally overslept, then arrived at my shift a whole hour late. I didn't even rush. I figured nobody would notice because the attendings didn't really know when our shifts began and ended and I honestly didn't care that much if they did.

Except just my luck, guess who the attending was? The rotation director. I couldn't believe it. When I saw him, I ran away to a corner and hid, trying to think of an excuse aside from, "I hate this rotation so much that I couldn't bring myself to come to work this morning."

Finally, I got up the courage to approach him. He just said hi and acted like I wasn't an hour late. I said, "I'm so sorry, I'm kind of late! I forgot I had a shift today!" (my chosen lie)

He shrugged and laughed, "I guess I have no choice but to throw you out of the residency then, huh?"

(He didn’t throw me out of residency. Unfortunately.)