Day 116, Exhausted

Day 116, I’ve worked some long shifts in my time and it’s left me feeling absolutely shattered. When I first started working I recall working seven nights in a row and by the end of it my body clock was out of kilter and I would need a week to get myself feeling normal again. Working 13 hour days is fairly common place in the NHS and it does leave one feeling drained. But the senior doctors are always quick to remind of days gone by where working through a whole weekend was the norm

Out here this is essentially what we do, work from a Friday morning right through to end of play on a Monday afternoon. It is a genuine slog that varies on the luck of the draw. On my previous weekends I have been lucky enough to have some time to recoup during the call. I was due a bad one.

Having been in the OPD until late on Friday I found myself being called at 6 am on Saturday. It was a patient that had come in with horrible chest infection that looked like he was in for a quick exit. The day carried on unrelentingly from there with babies struggling to be born while others struggled to live; old women fitting in a cot and old men gasping for breath. I managed to sneak away for 10 minutes only to be summoned by labour ward again.

The day turned to night and I was still sifting through notes trying to see whether I could add anything to the treatments. When I finally made it home they left me just enough time to crawl into bed and drift into sleep before hauling me back into the conscious world; the walk up the hill getting ever more difficult with each trip up in the dark. It was 2am before I managed to collapse into a heap on my bed, fully clothed, with my stethoscope still round my neck.

The sheer exhaustion I felt is incomparable to anything I have ever experienced, I have never been required to be that alert for that period of time. In the past I have always enjoyed having busy on calls, because when you finish it there is a genuine sense of accomplishment that goes with the relief. This weekend all I felt at the end was separation from reality, a profound slowness of mind, body and soul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCDcmpp3nPU