It has finally happened. The list of people who really need to kiss my ass has become large and unwieldy enough that an orderly queue the only way to guarantee an opportunity for everyone. If you could kindly form a single-file line to the left, you will be called when an opportunity to kiss my ass becomes available.
To the social worker who talked to me like a dog because I wasn’t moving fast enough on the discharge paperwork for her patient, in spite of the 21 patients on my list who have actual medical needs to be addressed: the line starts right over there.
To the patient’s daughter who needed me to come up to the floor late Saturday night so I could explain to her, as her other doctors had already done three times that day, why a serious infection like her mother has can cause changes in mental status, and why we don’t need to get Neurology to see her in the middle of the night: I empathize with your situation, and appreciate your concern for your mother. Now please get in line.
To the ER docs who called me at 4:00 AM on Sunday with two patients for me to work up, one of whom had been there since 7:00 the night before: back of the line.
To all the people (and my attending in particular) who bitch endlessly about the new Work Hours Rules that limit residents to thirty consecutive hours of working, whose gushing about the benefits of having residents work upwards of thirty hours in a row are rendered in exactly the same tone as an alcoholic’s whining about how he can drive just fine after a six-pack: from this point there is an estimated [30] minute wait to kiss my ass.
To the nurse who called me first thing Saturday morning to say, regarding the antibiotics that I had called in STAT the afternoon before, and had called back later to make sure they were being started, “Did you mean for him to get those antibiotics last night?”: Tell you what–next time, I’ll put a little star next to the orders that I really want done when I ask for them, and you can consider the rest of them to just be suggestions. Meanwhile, I think I’m going to want you to lick my bag, which requires a special appointment; please call the front desk to arrange a time in the next few days when it’s convenient for you.
To the printer in the office, which has decided to quit completely every day this week at about the time I’m trying to print out my patient list, check out, and go home: as an inanimate object, I guess I can’t really ask you to kiss my ass, but be warned–as another resident said, our “Office Space” moment is nigh. Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.
To the nurses who call me instead of my brilliant intern, Olga, with questions about her patients just because her Russian accent is a little hard to understand: just follow the velvet rope.
To Shit Boy, soon to be immortalized in a post all his own: right behind that gentleman over there.
To this weekend’s attending, who chose to round for four hours this morning on the new patients, leaving me almost no time to see my old patients and putting me an hour into violation of the aforementioned Work Hours Rules: just take a place in line for now. If, at the next resident-faculty meeting, you express wonder at why we just can’t seem to get our work done and get out on time, we’ll move you up, or perhaps squeeze you in for a bag-licking.
I know there are a lot of people who need to kiss my ass, but if we can all be cooperative and form an orderly line, everyone will have a chance in the most timely fashion possible. Thank you.
Thanks, Loopydude. Your mom sounds like my kind of lady. NP’s get shit on even more than R.N.'s, IMO. They work every bit as hard as any physician, and still get no respect.