In this column, SCCEP Member and renowned columnist, Dr. Ed Leap, shares with us some heartfelt compassion and insight about being an emergency physician. Next month, SCCEP will award Dr. Ed Leap the Jack H. Warren Award inĀ appreciation for his many years of leadership supporting the goals and missions of SCCEP and ACEP. Thank you Dr. Leap for your lifelong support of emergency clinicians (docs, nurses, techs) everywhere.
Dear emergency medicine physicians, You arenāt alone. This is very important for you to realize. I mean, I know you arenāt āalone.ā You have spouses and children, parents, siblings, neighbors, dogs and cats. Thatās all good. You need them.Ā Also, every shift is chock-full of people and their maladies, which you heroically manage day in, day out. Patients are everywhere. Some are sick and some are injured, and many are addicted and a few are just lonely. TheyāreĀ inescapable. And nurses. Theyāre all around also. The ones who carry out your orders, tend to your patients, sometimes ignore what you say and constantly interrupt your train of thought by putting EKGs in your face and shouting āChest pain in roomĀ three will you see it!ā Or who constantly ask you āis the order in yet?ā You canāt escape them. Even a trip to the restroom will result in a phone call in short order.
Furthermore, there are students and residents to educate, and shape into excellent doctors. (Without killing anyone.) And there are consultants too. The ones who tell you ācall me when the workup is finished,ā or āwhy didnāt you get theĀ phosphorus level? How can I know what to do without the phosphorus level! Jeez!ā And there are those who refer patients to you. āHey buddy, my patient has pneumonia and needs to be admitted to the hospitalist and has a bed but I needĀ you to check him out first.ā The ones who send you their post-op complication one hour after the surgery.
There are other people all around too. There are administrators and managers, credentialing ladies, people tracking your times and your efficiency and evaluating your patient satisfaction scores. There are medical records people andĀ coders tracking you day in, day out, to keep you on point with the endlessly important charting and billing that are the main purposes of your decades long education. Dear doctor, you arenāt alone. But not because of all of that.
Not because youāre under more scrutiny than at any time in the history of medicine. What I mean is, having traveled this great land of ours doing locums, I assure you that theĀ struggles you face are present everywhere.Ā Oh, they vary in degrees. Those little oases untouched by the icy hand of EMR can be positively pleasant in their lack of complex charting requirements. And on night shift, in the middle of nowhere, in the mountains, thereās a paucity ofĀ people in general. But there will still be complex social situations, still be drug addicts, still be someone who wants to know about your door to needle time. Everywhere you go, thereās āthat doctorā who is simply surly and impossible toĀ please when heās on call.
When I say you arenāt alone, what I mean is that we are a fraternity (or a sorority if you wish). Perhaps better, we are a tribe, a clan, an extended family. Emergency medicine is a small specialty but what we do is so consistent across theĀ country, and around the world, that we can all sit down at conferences or meetings, in airports or over dinner, and share the same stories, the same sorrows, the same laughs over the same archetypes. So when you come home and think that youāre the only one who thinks about quitting, youāre wrong.
We all do it now and then. When you think that maybe youāve lost your patience with drug seekers, youāre wrong. We all lose it now andĀ then. (Iām not proudā¦so I wonāt go into it.)Ā If you think that youāre not fit for night shift because you feel terrible after being up, trust me you arenāt alone. Nights make everyone nuts. (As does day shiftā¦and evening shift.) Itās a wonder we donāt all need psychiatric evaluation afterĀ long strings of sleeplessness coupled with complex care of the arguably the most demanding people on earth.
Are there days when you just want to go home and cry? Normal. Are there shifts you think you didnāt really know what was going on with anyone? Ditto. (PS, it usually means nothing was going on except drug seeking and the pursuit ofĀ work excuses.) Have you wanted to invite your on call specialist to the parking lot for a ācome to Jesus meeting,ā and you think you have a problem? Nope, Iāve been there. And do you think that you might be the only physician with an EMR āinboxā thatāsĀ full to the brim with requests you can barely understand? You arenāt. In fact, I suspect that delinquent charts have exploded in the last few years as charting becomes more and more complex.
Ladies and gentlemen, are there times you think you should have studied harder and tried for that ophthalmology residency? Havenāt we all. You arenāt alone. You arenāt alone in your troubles. But more important, you certainly are not alone in being part of the baddest, toughest, most compassionate and courageous group of physicians in the world.
Youāre tough, youāre kindĀ and youāre smart. You endure, no matter how hard or complex the shift, no matter how badly you feel.Ā Youāre weary and irritable and pale. Youāre hungry and thirsty and sometimes confused.
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