"Did You Have a Nice Holiday?"

People keep asking me this question, and it makes me want to laugh because I was working over the entire holiday weekend and now I'm feeling a bit like I stepped off the last plane out of Saigon. Recap:

• Christmas Day:  24-hour shift, rounded on sixteen patients and admitted two more. In the hospital for sixteen hours but at least got to sleep in my own bed. Partly cloudy skies, followed by hail and steady rain.
• Day After Christmas:  24-hour shift, rounded on twenty patients (includes four admissions and four discharges), had a very depressing family meeting about an ICU patient. Pouring rain all day, general sense of gloom. In the hospital for fourteen hours, slept at home.
• Saturday:  12-hour shift (hooray!), rounded on twenty patients (includes another 4 admissions and 4 discharges). Had an extremely frustrating meeting with family of ICU patient and a community colleague. General sense of despair and hysteria among the patients who have been cooped up in the hospital over the holiday. Raining all day. In the hospital for thirteen hours. Slept like a log.
• Sunday: 12-hour shift, rounded on twenty patients (incluedes 3 admissions and 3 discharges, I can't seem to tip the balance in my favor), had one more challenging meeting with ICU patient's family and community colleague, had to be firm and advocate for the patient's best interests, and finally we withdrew care. He died peacefully three hours later. Feeling physically numb but emotionally pissed-off. General mood in the hospital is more subdued than yesterday, perhaps because it has been raining continuously for what seems like forever. In the hospital fourteen hours. Return home in a state of collapse.

At first, when people asked me if I had a nice holiday, I said "I was here at the hospital."  For some reason this elicited so many expressions of sympathy and general "awwwww, poor you" attitude that I was in danger of succumbing to despair. So I changed my response to "Good. And yours?" The results have been much more satisfactory. I get to hear about everyone else's celebrations and don't have to relive my own horrors. Management of small-talk is the most overlooked professional skill in medicine.

Comments

[dragonfly]

Merry Christmas and a happy new year. May good things come to you and your partner in 2009.

[Robin]

As a patient, thank you. I hope you can get some rest and the sun comes out.

(P.S. I suck at small talk, myself.)