Call night is interesting when you're just starting med school or you're an applicant. It can be interesting or strenuous on the same service but a different day. Sometimes you come in at your regular time and work for 24-30+ hours or you come in in the afternoon/evening and work until the next team shows up and sign out (patient handoff) is over.
It stops being cool about after the first time you take call, honestly. I feel that while med students should take call in order to get used to residency, a lot of call nights are slow and no one really teaches because they're too tired, or the service gets so busy all your educators are swamped. I almost wish teaching hospitals had a dedicated educator on the team, who maybe had little to no clinical obligations and just taught a lot, but that's just unrealistic.
I'm trying to develop more resistance to fatigue and the lack of control over my schedule as it'll only get worse as a resident. One of the best quotes that helps me is from a WW 2 series called Band of Brothers: "We're airborne, we're meant to be surrounded." I am accepting getting pushed to my limits as just an inevitability, without really desiring for things to get better. It's sort of like surrender, I guess.
Later on I take call twice in the same week with my last call after that. It's tiring and I want to get through all my training without feeling like it cost me a lot of health and happiness. Taking things one day at a time has really been helping me, instead of living on a countdown. Also, planning dates or get togethers has been a great boost because it gives me something nice and non-medical to look forward to.
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