That, I think, was the hardest call I’ve ever had. A list:
~~ 5 floor consults, one who was pretty ill and got transferred to the ICU right after I saw her.
~~2 (and 1/2 – I punted to medicine on the third) ER consults that I discharged home).
~~4 ICU admissions, two of whom arrived at the same time and were both quite ill.
~~10 calls from outside patients– my favorites were the 2 am call because patient had had gas and some slight diarrhea for 24 hours (which was improving!) because “something wasn’t right” and the 4 am call from a patient who had taken a bath and noticed a new, non-ithcing, not inflamed, not warm slight rash and just wanted to know what it was…!!!!).
~~1 floor admission (thankfully NOT to stroke).
~~1 patient who crumped so suddenly that it was all that I could do to keep them alive overnight. That was a four hour ordeal of calling my fellow, three different attendings and trauma surgery and general surgery and just praying that I could figure something to do.

Luckily there wasn’t an acute stroke or I really would have been screwed. But I managed, even with my lazy louse of a senior resident who got something like 6 hours of sleep (and I got 10 minutes with my head on the desk), who just managed to succeed in pissing of those I was doing consults for. I finished my notes at 7:00, ran around and put them in charts, signed out the consults that needed to be seen, prerounded on the ICU patients (which took all of ten minutes, since I had been glued to their side all night long), wrote my notes, rounded with my attending (he’s my favorite, but oh, he gets so painfully distracted when I’m just itching to leave!), called radiology to beg for an MRI, talked to anesthesiology to get the patient intubated so we could get said MRI, wrote transfer orders, and finally walked out the door, where I turned the air conditioner on in my car so I wouldn’t fall asleep driving home. And now I’m home and utterly exhausted and will be sleeping for the next 12 + hours.

Good night!