The ER

I've begun a new rotation, the ER. As can probably be surmised from my lack of posting, it has not been eventful. I made the decision, a year back when my class went through the rotation-picking-lottery, to use the good number I got for this rotation to go to a small, community ER that is closer to my apartment than the inner city monstrosity where I did my SICU rotation.

This may have been a bad decision. Though I most decidedly have easy days, and I'm within cycling distance of the hospital, nothing happens.

Nothing.

I've spent hours at a time reading, waiting for a patient to show up. While this may help my book knowledge, I feel my physical exam and history taking skills are rotting through inactivity. About the most intense thing that happened today was a medicine resident getting paged out of the ER to a code. I wanted to go with him, because it was certainly going to be more entertaining than this.

So (despite my feeling bad for wishing pain and suffering on the world) hopefully this is just a slow few days, and things will pick up. But with the attending I've had for the last few days, that might not even make a difference. A lady came in today who needed sutures, and he did them rather than let me. *sigh* Only three more weeks.