8 days in the ICU

Today’s inane image of the day:

Hello from my office!

You still work that many days?

I’ve been asked whether my schedule is more “humane” or “manageable” now that I’m an attending. The answer is a resounding “yes!”… but, I still have blocks of long weeks. The work never stops being challenging for one reason or another. There are certainly still weeks when I am scheduled to work 70 hours. Yet even with this assignment, the work still feels so much better than when I was in training. Long weeks as a trainee felt exhausting because there was always something new to learn. Long weeks as a first-year attending also felt exhausting for the same reason. Now that I’m a few years out, I feel more at ease, confident in my clinical skills, and able to appreciate how incredible the work I get to do is.

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