Sid Parihar, MD

I recently came across this blurb I wrote years ago when I was delirious and trying to stay afloat on the wards. Now, I’m a fellow, and while some things have definitely changed, plenty have stayed the same…

Is it really a day off if, after 13 straight days of being on the wards (a rotation where I’m taking care of patients sick enough to necessitate an overnight stay in the hospital), I only get only 24 hours to myself? Forget about the 150+ hours I’ve worked in the past two weeks and how, if left to my own devices, I’m inclined to try (and fail) to make up some of my mountain of sleep debt by sleeping that entire day. Forget about the data collection I need to do for one of my research projects and the abstracts that need to be written for an upcoming conference. And don’t get me started on all the messages in my work inbox from clinic patients who need everything from medication refills to letters for their insurance companies, explaining why they really need the drug I prescribed them (if I don’t, the insurance company won’t cover the payments). As for the ever-growing list of topics I ought to read up on so I’m less clueless the next time I encounter patients with those corresponding ailments? Not happening.

I mean, sure, there are workaholics in every profession. But ostensibly, the finance bro who chooses to keep working on a live deal on a Saturday, or the computer scientist at FAANG (what an awful acronym) who keeps tweaking his code well into Sunday evening, do so only once in a while. And they don’t need to. I mean, no one’s going to die if that deal doesn’t get done. We, on the other hand, on average, are given only one day off every week, and that’s considered normal. Believe it or not, there’s actually a term for when you get both weekend days off: a “Golden Weekend.” What literally every other profession gets every damn week, we in the field of medicine have deified as a holy occasion that comes maybe once a month if you’re lucky. It’s pathetic. (Dr. Glaucomflecken does a great job explaining this in a now-famous post of his.)

If I’m lucky, I’ll wake up a little hungover (since hopefully the night before was a good one), but then I’ll go to the grocery store to buy groceries. (God knows I’ve got no time to cook anything but eggs and toast.) I’ll do my laundry because reusing scrubs covered in MRSA isn’t appealing, and there’s only so many times I can re-wear my Patagonia jacket in the hospital before I’m literally spreading more disease than I’m treating. Hopefully, I’ll call my dad because it was his birthday a couple of days prior, but by the time I got home that evening and called him, I was half asleep. And by the time I get to the gym to let off some steam, it’ll probably already be late in the afternoon. I’ll spend an hour reading up on how my patients did that day while someone else was covering my list and then get “sign-out” on the patients from my sister team, who I’ll be “cross-covering” tomorrow (more on this another time…).

And before I know it, the day’ll be behind me. Somehow, I’ll be more tired at the end of it than before.