Call

The other day at swimming lessons Emily was talking to one of the doctor's kids. I was (like any good mom) listening in and was surprised by what I heard. Emily told the little boy that her dad was on call that weekend. The little boy said yeah that his mom was DOD (doctor on duty for their clinic) that weekend. The little boy then asked Emily if it had been a busy weekend. Emily replied that it hasn't been too bad. At that point I almost laughed out loud. Who are these kids?

Because we took a few days off for our vacation Bret has been making up some call. He was on call last Wednesday (the day after got back), this weekend, and last night. You counted right...he was on call the last 5 out 0f 7 days. Most of the time being on call isn't so bad. Last night for example he came home about 6:30, had dinner, went back in to the hospital for a c-section, and was back home by 9:30 and had no other pages the rest of the night. He gets off today at noon and since he slept last night it will be a nice afternoon.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way and there is NEVER any way to tell what it is going to be like. This weekend was not good. Nothing bad really happened but they were swamped. Lost of sick people, surgeries, and babies of course. We almost didn't see Bret at all this weekend and he was so tired and stressed that when we did see him I wondered if it wouldn't have been better for him to stay at the hospital the whole time. The kids saw Bret on Thursday evening and then briefly on Saturday morning for breakfast. They didn't see him again until Monday.

Doctors are generally know for two things 1) they make good money and 2) they work all the time. The money will be good I won't lie. But now I understand why. To say that they work all the time is such an understatement. If they got paid hourly they would make twice as much as they do through billing.

Not trying to write a big whiny post. This year has actually been not too bad. This was the worst call of the year by far. Most have been not to bad. We are really looking forward to moving to Garden City. Not only with the practice be smaller but he won't be spending so much time managing younger residents and the extra things that are part of residency. Only a few more months. The truth is though that even in a few months there are still things about his job that we will forever deal with. Long hours, working weekends and holidays, stress, and missing things in our lives for work. These are things I hate but reality.