7 on, 7 off

Well, I said that I was going to talk about the new work schedule and when this post goes up I will be on day 6 of 10 so it may not be the best time, but overall I am still loving the schedule. For those that don't know, I work with a group of Internal Medicine hospitalists. They have always worked 7 days on and 7 days off and that's what I did when I first started here 5 years ago. We had that schedule for about a year, but then changed to Monday through Friday to optimize productivity, etc. I'll be honest, I never really liked that schedule. And I felt bad complaining about it because it is what most of the working world does, but it just isn't great for me. I'm an introvert through and through and I can turn it on and talk to patients and families and have hard conversations but by the end of the day, I'm spent and by the end of the week, I have nothing left to give. 2 days was not enough time for me to recover. Add to that, it also meant that I had to go shopping and get groceries on the weekends with everyone else when the stores were so crowded and I felt like I was always a little on edge. Not ideal!

Over the past few years, the hospital census has changed and the needs of the group have changed. The docs in the group have known that I wanted to go back to the 7 on, 7 off schedule for a while so as things were changing they discussed the possibility of a schedule change and I was all for it! We officially made the switch in February so I'm about 4 months in and still loving it. The whole system is a little hard to explain, but basically I'm on call from 8a-8p Monday-Sunday. Being at a teaching hospital complicates things a little. I hold the admission pager from 8-1 Monday through Friday then pass it to the residents but stay in the rotation for admissions until I have hit my admission cap. Then I have the pager again from 6:30-7:30p until night float residents come on and take over. Through the week, I'm pretty much inhouse the entire time. On the weekends, I'm usually in the hospital from 8-2 or 3, but then still take call until 7:30. And then at 8p on Sunday night, I turn the pager off and don't think about it again until the next Monday morning! It's glorious!

The 7 on is definitely unpredictable. Some days it is crazy busy and I walk into 5 admissions and keep running all day. Other days they just seem to trickle in, but I never know which it will be. And by day 5, I'm usually pretty beat. But the 7 days off more than makes up for it. I usually just relax on day 1, maybe try to do some laundry or something low key and then on day 2 I start to be productive- get groceries, clean the house, etc. Last week when I was off, I went to the dentist, the therapist, worked out a few days, had coffee with a friend, met the boy for lunch twice, and got to spend a lot of time snuggling with my puppy. (She goes to daycare on the weeks that I work.)

So overall, I'm loving it. And I definitely feel like it makes me feel like I can stick with this job for longer- especially since New York is off the table for now. My only concern with it is how sustainable it will be long term with a family and kids and stuff. But that's a long way off! So for now, I'm loving the schedule and enjoying every second of it!

Life Update

So I haven't written since October. That's over 5 months ago. Man, how life changes!

When I last left off, I had was super over work, had just applied for my NY nursing license and was about to hit up the Big Apple with Katie. Where do I even begin?

New York with Katie was amazing, per usual! We stayed at an AirBNB in the East Village which was a lot of fun to get a different experience, but also knew I wouldn't want to move there. Too many NYU students and just had a very college vibe to it. But otherwise it was a lot of fun! Most memorable moments: we went to the 911 memorial museum. I have been to the memorial a few times, but have never actually gone to the museum. It was intense. Very heavy and surreal! We talked about where we were when we first found out (Sophomore Spanish class) and then looked around at all these teenagers walking through the exhibits that weren't even alive when it happened. That was crazy to think about...
MMM#2: We went on a literary pub crawl in Brooklyn. It was awesome! It definitely made me fall in love with Brooklyn, although transportation to and from the city isn't as easy as I had hoped. But we saw where Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible and had drinks at the bar Frank McCourt used to go to when he was teaching high school English (you know, before he wrote Angela's Ashes). It was all really neat.
MMM#3: Hamilton! Do I need to say anything else?! It was even more incredible than I was expecting! While we were waiting to get in, this guy walked by with earbuds in singing along to the soundtrack. Then he turned and walked into the stage door. Once he was in, the security guard just casually said "he plays Hercules Mulligan" Umm what?! Not singing along to the soundtrack, working on his lines! The show was incredible! I sang along the entire time. The kid beside me did not seem to be too impressed. Oops!
Oh, we also went and walked around NYU hospital. Just doing some investigative work. Wanted to see what a potential future workplace may look like... Overall, it was a great trip and I continued to fall in love with the city!

Soon after I got back home, I got my NY nursing license! One step closer! I then began to look at the NP application. It didn't seem too bad since it was really just transferring things to a different state. There was also talk at work about going back to the 7 on, 7 off schedule. It's what the docs do and what we did when I first started but we have been on a Monday through Friday schedule for a few years now. It's not my favorite and I think was contributing to my work burnout. The days are stressful and 2 days are just not enough time to recover. We ended up making the switch in February and it's been great. The weeks on are hard. I'm pretty spent by day 5, but 7 days off totally makes it worth it. I'll do a entire post on the switch and the new schedule.

But I didn't end up sending in my NY NP application because... about 2 weeks after I got back from the trip I started dating someone. We talked about everything pretty early on. He wasn't going to do long distance, but also didn't want me to resent him if I gave up New York for him. We talked about it a lot. I thought through what I wanted to do and ultimately decided that I loved New York and I wanted an adventure, but I also felt like part of the draw was that there was nothing tying me down to Memphis and if I was going to go then it had to be then. If I had a reason to stay, I felt like I needed to see it through.

So that's where things sit now. We are planning a trip to visit New York soon, but moving is currently on pause. We'll see what happens!