When I was a resident, there was one night when I was on home call and hanging around the hospital, making sure there was nothing to do before I left. A resident on another service said that he had to leave to catch a plane at 4, so he asked if I could stick around till 5 so that if the med student needed any orders signed or whatever, I could cover for him. I said sure, because you can't really say no to a request like that.
Anyway, around 4:15, I came back to the floor and the resident was still there. I said, "Don't you have a plane to catch?"
He said, "Yeah! I'm going to have to run for it!"
"Do you need any help?" I asked him. "I don't want you to miss your plane."
"No, there's nothing I need, really," he said. "Why don't you ask the med student if she needs help? She's busier than I am."
For some reason, that got me really angry. I'm willing to sign orders or offer wisdom to his med student, but there was no way in hell I was doing her scut work so she could leave earlier. I was like wtf?! "I'll help YOU so you can make your plane," I said, "but if you don't need help, I'm going downstairs to do my own work."
And I stormed off (sort of).
I wonder if he really had a plane to catch. As for his request, " why don't you ask the
ReplyDeletemed student if she needs help?," who made him in charge? He's not your attending !
More to the point, you offered to help him out of a jam. Instead of being grateful, he
decided he's in charge and here's how you can be useful. Wow, the nerve!
if I had no pressing work to do and someone agreed to cover for me as a resident, I'd have my butt out of the hospital faster than you could imagine. Why stick around and wait for something to suck you in?
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