A night on the firms...

Currently I'm on the University of Minnesota's General Medicine (GM) night service (firm night float, I'm not sure why, nor is anyone sure why GM service is called firms here, but this is what we call it). Over all it is hit or miss on how busy it is in any given night. After reading an article about how to avoid burn out (I'm not really burnt out, but I've had 16 weeks of 70 hours each week, I'm ready for some kind of vacation), the article recommended making a game out of your work to help fight the burn out. In an effort to give this a try, I decided in the shower before work today to write down every page that I received on my shift. Just so it is known, for what ever reason this has been a light week (that is why I have time to do this). Never-the-less, this was enlightening and entertaining.


All the times are in military time. Only the pages that I received are here, not every thing that I did, or the nurses/doctors that I called.


Abbreviations: ED - emergency department, hbg - hemoglobin, pt - patient, d/c - discharge, A flutter - atrial flutter, RVR - rapid ventricular response, BP - blood pressure, med - medications


2000 - start of shift, received signout's one pt waiting in the ED
2044 - 7D* called w/ hbg result
2044 - 7A called about a question of a firm A pt's ativan
2100 - 6A pt for admit on the floor
2134 - 6A "please change pt's AM lab times"
2141 - 7A "pt did not d/c home today due to fever, please d/c the d/c order"
2203 - 7A pt requests more pain meds
2203 - 6B pt w/ a flutter w/ RVR
2218 - 6A pt's orthostatic BP results
2305 - 7A pain med request
0000 - Call from the MICU team
0015 - 7D hbg was 9.8
0044 - 7A pain med request
0100 - 7A sleep med request
0100 - pain med request
0128 - Pharm: drug reaction warning
0140 - 7A nasal spray request
0316 - 7A pt with abdominal pain
0438 - 7A a page to the wrong service
0649 - 7A to inform me about a low blood sugar from 0300 (why they didn't page at 0300 who knows)
0730 - sign out to the day teams, and go home

Overall a really light night on the paging front.

* - The medical floors are on the 6th and 7th floors. Each floor is divided into pods A-D.