my feelings upon completion of day 12 at the hospital

When we have to staff weekends we do not get days off during the week like staff pharmacists do... as residents we just work straight through which means 12 days between weekends.  Now, fortunately, I only have to work every third weekend so this 12 day business isn't consistent... some of the other residents in the city have to work every other weekend which means they are always in the process of working a 12 day stretch... eww.

Anyway, now that my first long haul is over, I have a huge feeling of relief... I have never been so excited to be able to sleep in.  I know we aren't putting in the kind of hours that medical residents do but getting up and being to work by 6:30am everyday for 12 days is a big difference from life prior to residency.  I discussed this with one of my co-resies and we decided that the biggest difference is how much more tired we are after a normal day's work.  Things are great but I am tired every single day.  We decided that it must be the extra stress that comes with being real pharmacists now with no one to necessarily double check our work... everything we do is so real now and it affects patients in a big way and just spending 8 or more hours a day with that makes me so strangely exhausted...  So, thankfully I get a weekend now to recuperate so I can be refreshed for Monday :-)

A cool thing happened today -- I got my official pharmacist white coats with my name on them :-)  I know I've said it before but this really was the last piece of the puzzle and I really am totally legit now!  I have the name tag, the pharmacist tag, the pager, the office/desk space/computer, the scrubs for the weekend, the LICENSE,  and now the personalized white coats :-)  This is going to be a long and tiring year but it is also going to be so so so exciting :-)

goodnight