jeopardized

December 17, 2008

so for 5 or 6 weeks of the year, as peds residents we spend time on what is called jeopardy call. this means that we go about our business on nice electives, but if someone from an essential rotation gets sick or has to miss work for some reason, you are pulled out of la-la land to cover their (more important) job. i made it through intern year without a single significant jeopardy call, but yesterday morning — right after i wrote my happy little post — it finally happened. jeopardized.

i was on the treadmill 2.7 miles into my 5 mile run and my pager went off. i pretty much knew it meant i was going to be pulled — but i was decidedly unthrilled to find out that i was pulled:

✓ to get there ASAP
✓ for a 30 hour call shift
✓ with no intern for the first morning
✓ and to give an impromptu presentation — with applicants watching — the next morning while post-call.

i did 0.3 more miles to make it an even 3 (i know, someday i will receive karmic punishment for that) and headed in. and actually, it wasn’t THAT bad. the poor resident who i was covering was clearly ILLIN’ with something flulike and non-work-compatible, and i had an interesting grey’s anatomy-esque admission that i got to present (it had drama! emotion! a fun medical twist!). the downside is that we got 8 jillion admissions and i slept for a sad, short 30 minutes.

so if this post makes no sense, that’s why.

and now i know what it is like to be jeopardized. let’s hope it never happens again.

4 Comments

  • Reply Anonymous March 10, 2019 at 7:30 pm

    If I tried to write a post on 30 minutes of sleep, there would be typos everywhere. Kudos.

  • Reply Allison March 10, 2019 at 7:30 pm

    Hey…it’s Allison, the hopeful medical student, again. I LITERALLY don’t think I will be able to stay awake for that long someday! How do you do it?!?! My eyes get super heavy after getting up “early” and staying up “late.” Do you have any tricks to help you? Residency will be far away for me, but I admire how well you handle it!

  • Reply Cindy March 10, 2019 at 7:30 pm

    oh no! i remember jeopardy call. i don’t think i ever got called in, but i did have to use the service myself when i got terrible diarrhea. but that’s probably tmi.

  • Reply RunToFinish March 10, 2019 at 7:30 pm

    wow..I seriously can’t imagine a 30 hour shift..that just seems insane for doctors really I mean I want you to be awake and alert!

  • Leave a Reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.