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!