You know that you have been in the medical field too long when…
1) You know to remain seated until everyone is done eating at your lunch table in the hospital cafeteria. Because you’ve learned- the cafeteria is a gossip mill. If you are the first person to finish lunch and take your tray to the kitchen, everyone starts talking about you.
2) You one day realize you haven’t slept past 9 AM in years. You’re always up early for work and your body can’t seem to stay in sleep-mode for very long even on weekends. Stupid internal clock.
3) You’ve developed bad back problems from dentistry by leaning over to see into patients’ mouths all day.
4) You have a love/hate relationship with your pager. You won’t leave anywhere without it, but you dread getting called in on weekends.
5) You know how valuable caller ID is. You know when to pick up the home phone, having strategically memorized the patients that call and only want drugs from the patients’ names that genuinely probably need help.
6) You frequently get asked the question, “are you ever going to retire?!”
7) You aren’t surprised by any case thrown at you. You’ve seen it all and something you would have thought was outrageous 5-10 years ago just isn’t weird anymore.
What about you? What made you realize that you have been in the medical field too long? Let us know!
Photo credit: Bradley Gauthier
