There's a New Kid On the Playground

So I've started working as a hospitalist at Macy's, having worked four day shifts to get a feel for the place and a lay of the land. I've located all the bathrooms and all the working fax machines. I have a yeoman's grasp upon the EMR, which is pretty good and makes life as a resentful Gimbels refugee at least 15% easier than that of a harried Gimbels hospitalist. Everyone is very nice and does a very professional job and I really have nothing to complain about. Not that I'm going to let this stop me, no sir-ree.

Among the many surreal, out-of-body moments I had during those four day shifts was one I predicted would happen. I've been a Gimbels outcast for so long, I'm used to being royally snubbed by certain of the specialists who owe their allegiance to Macy's. After I'd made the decision to leave, I dreaded encountering one of these specialists who, after crapping on my head for over four years, might have the almighty gall to pat me on the back and call me by my first name. "My friends call me Theresa," I imagined myself saying with old-school British dignity, "but I would prefer that you call me Dr. Chan." 

(Don't worry, I haven't said it yet--but I'm saving it in my arsenal of snappy comebacks. You have my permission to adapt the phrase for use in your own professional disasters.)

Despite my mother and Noo telling me what a paranoid sourpuss I was being, guess what happened? My second day on the job, I met Dr. Foosball in the doctor's lounge. Foos is one of the neurologists who has been giving Gimbels the snub ever since I arrived in Rural. For a while, Foos gave up her privileges there after a rebuke by the Chief of Staff over her failure to show up to a neurologic catastrophe until hours after the first frantic call went out. Her partners covered Gimbels for a couple of years, but then they must have locked her in a closet with a few crusts of bread one weekend, because she recently reapplied and was granted Gimbels privileges again. Not that she ever showed her face around there, but I wasn't yearning for her company anyway.

So after I introduced myself to Foos, her eyes widened and she told me how thrilled she was at my choice to join Macy's staff, how great everyone was in the hospital, what a terrific and supportive relationship she had with all the Hospitalists-R-Us doctors, how much she and her fellow neurologists went out of their way to be helpful to all the other doctors, and how happy she'd be to provide me with any help I needed. Then she went on to explain why she'd resigned privileges at Gimbels, including all the gory details about the neurologic catastrophe which set the ball in motion, and then she made several snarky remarks about Dr. Strangelove, a neurologist in solo practice who has been a Gimbels stalwart for many years. According to Foos, Strangelove is "a difficult person" who "rubs people the wrong way" and "is someone you can never make happy." This about the man who has saved my sorry ass many, many times over the last few years, whom I consider one of my loyal friends and colleagues, and even if he is temperamental at times, I would have him on my tug-of-war team any day over Foos, who is the kind of person who lets go of the rope at the first sight of mud on her shoes. I mean, what kind of person starts trash-talking about a colleague ten minutes after meeting the new staff doctor?

No, I did not say "STEP OFF, BITCH!"--although I've been kicking myself ever since--because I'm the new girl in the playground and I don't want anyone to know about the can of spray paint in my backpack yet. Wait until I start my night shifts later this week, then you'll start to see graffitti on the walls.

Comments

[Beth]

Wow. You should tell that neurologist to not poop where she sleeps.

[john]

"...I don't want anyone to know about the can of spray paint in my backpack yet."

I've been reading (and loving!) your blog for almost a year now -- but I'm telling you, I will read *nothing* else if you promise to show pictures of the tags you sprayed on the parking garage, or the door to the icu, or, say, the nurses' station...

(either way, thanks for writing.)