I
am
so
tired.

I'm on track to work 90 hours this week. I still meet the 80-hour workweek average (80 hours per week averaged over 4 weeks), so there's no official complaining allowed (80 last week, 90 this week, and probably 50-60 next week averages to about 70/week). I already complained last week when we were being held past 5 pm to do scut work. I don't mind being held past 5 pm if I'm in an awesome surgery, or if I'm actually seeing patients and contributing to patient care, but to hold us through pm rounds just so we can "run ahead of the team and pull charts and open them to the correct pages" is total bullshit. So I spoke up. And the residents got pissed. And I was fearing for my clinical grade, even though everyone told me that I was the best person to speak up and stick my neck out, because the dean knows me and will listen to my side of the story if I end up with bad evaluations. I was all set to drop the issue to save my grade (and that's how the abuse is propagated!), but luckily, an attending (and past clerkship director) happened to stick his nose into the situation completely on his own, and took it upon himself to speak with the residents. So now, every day at 5 pm, the three of us not on call are told unceremoniously to "have a nice evening." I will, thank you very much. Never mind that my evenings consist of vegging on the couch for 30 minutes to an hour trying to regain my sanity and checking email, then finding dinner, then wasting some more time until about 9 pm, when I take a shower and slowly get ready for bed. Asleep by 10:30 at the latest. Yeah, that's a great evening. You'll note that no studying is being accomplished because my brain is in a constant state of mush.

I've officially decided that I can't do general surgery. Yeah, surgery is cool, but you can be a surgeon without being a general surgeon. Never mind that the residency is pure hell and I don't think I (or my future marriage) could take it. The bottom line is, I'm really not passionate about gallbladders or thyroids or bowels. So general surgery is out.

Did you know fall premieres are this week? I didn't. At least, not until someone else pointed it out. Do I even remember back to May, when I was totally following Grey's Anatomy, ER, Scrubs, and probably some other shows? Nope. Thank goodness for DVR and the ability to catch up on all my TV watching in October, when surgery finally ends (October 12, to be exact. Let the countdown begin.)