Am I too nice?

[wildcard451 0]

Well, I'm in-house call for pediatrics tonight. My intern is a 60 year old who has come back to do medicine.
Anyways...he starts getting sick....coughing, hard to breathe, nauseated....all the fun stuff.

I let him go home and am finishing the call by myself....

I feel like I was way too nice, and had it been someone my age I would have told them to suck it up and come crying to me when they are bleeding from the nose, then we'll talk.

Opinions?

[MikeForsythe 0]

Well it sounds like if you hadn't let him go home he would have been your next patient anyway You did the right thing

Time and pressure will always show you who a person really is!

[kschilk 0]

Ya' done good....now suck it up an' take it like a man!

"T'was ever thus."

[kbordson 8]

Remember.... sometimes it's easier not to have interns. Even if it means that you might get woken up more.

Sounds like you did the right thing on several levels.

[lippy 918]

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Well it sounds like if you hadn't let him go home he would have been your next patient anyway You did the right thing

I doubt he would've been comin back to pediatrics as a patient

I got nuthin

[stitch 0]

I dunno.

Send me $1000 to fund an independent character research study and I'll let you know.

"No cookies for you"- GFD
"I don't think I like the sound of that" ~ MB65
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[Squeak 17]

NO

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How's yours doing?

[shropshire 0]

Surely, it would have been much better if he had stayed at work and coughed and sneezed all of the poorly kids.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[monkycndo 0]

You ask the question as if we actually cared.

50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

[ACMESkydiver 0]

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Surely, it would have been much better if he had stayed at work and coughed and sneezed all of the poorly kids.

That's what I was thinking. You don't want to spread that garbage around to kids that are already sick, do ya?

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[bigway 4]

Nope.

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[Muenkel 0]

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Surely, it would have been much better if he had stayed at work and coughed and sneezed all of the poorly kids.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


That's what I was thinking. You don't want to spread that garbage around to kids that are already sick, do ya?

I think that goes right to the essence of his question.

_________________________________________
Chris

[kbordson 8]

To understand this situation a bit better, look at it from the perspective of the intern/resident.


Interns are the absolute workers. They are the "scut monkeys." Almost to the point of indentured servants (they had to enact a federal law limiting the work hours to only eighty hours a week and 30hr days.... unfortunately it was after I did my intern year) Interns do all the charting, the dictation, the charting, the answering of random pages from the nurses, the charting, tracking down labs, the charting, following up on pathology, the charting, researching that weird zebra disease the child has, have I mentioned charting. As a senior resident... you supervise. So, wildcard was willing to "demote" himself to doing the interns.

But.... was he doing it for the sake of the Intern (you have to admire those that go back to medical school after a full prior career... but do you cut them slack? would he have cut a 20something year old that same slack?) or for the sake of the patients (the intern could have worn a mask and should ALWAYS be washing his hands) or for his sake (sick interns are very needy and he wouldn't have gotten any sleep anyway)

At anyrate... the right answer was to send him home. In my opinion.

[livendive 8]

Yes. I've always wondered why you try so hard to emulate Mother Theresa. Don't be such a milquetoast.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[skybytch 273]

You were far too nice. You can't be a good supervisor if you go and get all compassionate and shit. Underlings will only respect you if you come across as harsh and authoritarian, even if you are a big marshmallow inside.

Next time give the slacker double duty. That'll teach him to come whining to you.

[wildcard451 0]

Quote

To understand this situation a bit better, look at it from the perspective of the intern/resident.


Interns are the absolute workers. They are the "scut monkeys." Almost to the point of indentured servants (they had to enact a federal law limiting the work hours to only eighty hours a week and 30hr days.... unfortunately it was after I did my intern year) Interns do all the charting, the dictation, the charting, the answering of random pages from the nurses, the charting, tracking down labs, the charting, following up on pathology, the charting, researching that weird zebra disease the child has, have I mentioned charting. As a senior resident... you supervise. So, wildcard was willing to "demote" himself to doing the interns.

But.... was he doing it for the sake of the Intern (you have to admire those that go back to medical school after a full prior career... but do you cut them slack? would he have cut a 20something year old that same slack?) or for the sake of the patients (the intern could have worn a mask and should ALWAYS be washing his hands) or for his sake (sick interns are very needy and he wouldn't have gotten any sleep anyway)

At anyrate... the right answer was to send him home. In my opinion.

Apparently, he's still sick enough today to be excused from clinic, so I hope he is actually doing ok.

Sometimes it is easier to do it yourself from the upper level standpoint. But that was not what I was really considering.

Had that been a 26 year old intern I probably would have said suck it up and get going, and put a mask on. However, I really didn't think this guy was gonna do well throughout the night, so he was not doing anyone any favors to be here.

On the other foot, I was trained in a malignant program, where the only way you were going home was if you vomited on the attending's shoes, and even then you may be told to suck it up.

Either way, it was more in jest about being too nice...

He was too sick to work
I didn't feel like getting sick
I didn't want to expose my kids to him
.
..
...

And now he gets to remember this favor one night when I don't feel like taking call next year....