The conundrum of Dr. McDeedles

I think most of us have caught an episode of E.R. or Grey's Anatomy.  My husband is truly in the exact same shoes as the resident's on Grey's Anatomy.  General Surgery Resident, extraordinaire (I added the extraordinaire, of course).  In case you were wondering he is a cross between Izzy and Cristina Yang-- all the sweet and all the saucy (okay he's not really saucy, but he's an intelligent, hard worker).

Although these medical shows often get a jeer from us for their crazy plotlines, there is one thing about residency that is ABSOLUTELY true.  You can never win with the attendings.  Even if you're right, you're wrong.  They sit and fling crap at you about what a silly decision you've made even when you were told by the on-call attending the previous night to do just what you did.  Can you defend yourself and say you were just doing what was suggested to you?  Nope.  Because if you did, it shows up on your evaluation at the end of the month that you are not taking responsibility for your decisions! Seriously, I think the whole process of evaluations are what keeps the residents (who do the lion's-share of work (with the lamb's pay)) from exploding every day at the silly and unfair treatment they are given by their egomaniacal attendings.

Example:  Last night D took a trauma in the afternoon.  It was a 20-something man who had a TON of medical problems. He had spina-bifida, was a parapalegic with chronic extremity wounds (bed-sores), and also had his legs amputated.  He showed up to the E.R. with weakness and some clearly infected wounds. D consulted on the man in the E.R., and decided his symptoms were indicative of an infection.  Thinking he would be courteous to the attending who had operated on this man MANY times in the past (i.e. THE ATTENDING'S patient), he called him to let him know he was admitting the man.  Instead of a,"thanks for letting me know what was up," he was asked, "Why are you calling me?  You shouldn't have called me until you did a full work-up and can tell me exactly what his problem was." By now D's "on-call" shift was over-WAY OVER, and he was getting ready to scrub into a gunshot wound surgery.  "You need to man-up and make decisions as a Doctor instead of reporting to me." So, that was a 'no thanks,' for keeping me in the loop.

Fast forward to tonight.  It is 5:50 P.M. D's "on-call"status ends at 6:00 P.M.  He gets a call that there is a level-2 trauma in the bay.  He goes down to the bay.  No attending shows up.  He's been told that some attendings don't show up for level 2's.  So he runs the trauma himself.  Turns out the guy has passed out after inhaling gold spray-paint.  He hit his head.  D orders a head CT.  There is blood in the cranium.  He calls Neurosurgery and passes the patient on to them.  He tidies things up in the computer (by now it is 7:30) and calls the attending (the same guy that chewed him out last night).  Instead of a,"Okay. Good job," he is chewed out again, "Why are you still in the hospital?"

"The trauma came in while I was still on-call." 

"Well, your shift ended at 6:00.  You should let the on-call handle it. . . . . Why didn't you call me?"

D's reply, "Because I was told by other residents that some attendings don't show up for level 2's." (AND last night you told me to be a man-doctor and handle things on my own)  "I also figured if you wanted to be there, you would've been there." (dude has a pager that beeps for trauma's just like D).

And that, folks, is a typical day at the office for my hubby.  How does he handle it, I don't know.  He should be the raging alcoholic, don't you think?