Excuse Me, Mr

I don't really have a great deal to say, again... but i feel like I have to write something, if only for you, dear and constant reader.

I am feeling increasingly uncomfortable at work; sort of. My 'methods' have been called in to question. Not so much my clinical practice, for which I have received no complaints, but the way in which I deliver it. Some of my colleagues don't trust me.

Are they justified?

No.

I may be almost willfully eccentric, but I'm still naive enough to think that doing right by my patient is the most important, the only thing. And if they're happy about how I do that..?

I guess I'm just not very good at toeing the line. ( A boxing analogy, in case you were wondering 'bout the spelling). I think I'm also a little afraid; afraid that maybe I'm wrong, and that I'm not so good at my job. What if I'm wrong?

I have to believe I'm doing the right thing, that I'm doing right by my patients. What else am I good for?

This bout of unusually (even for me) melancholy is the pressure cooker atmos at work. After years of giving it the big 'I am', our department has been granted the extra staff and space we say we need. So we absolutely cannot fail now.

The extra staff are largely not EM trained, but seem to be finding their way around o.k. Considering they're earnin' 3 times my hourly rate, they ----ing oughtta. And the extra space? Well, if a man were a cynic, he might suggest it's just another way of circumventing the 4 hour target. Does it improve patient care? I'm not sure, but maybe that's a big part of my problem... that I can't see the big picture.

Is it working? Maybe. There still isn't enough slack in the hospital, and the efforts to make that space seem to bounce back to our ED more often than ever now.

I'm sorry this is such a whiny effort. I just feel increasingly like a dinosaur these days, unable to adjust to how Emergency Medicine is practiced around me, and in real danger of not having fun anymore.

Should work be fun?

Damn right it should. Shouldn't it?

I know it used to be. Maybe it's just time for me to move on. Even that might not be so easy; upset the wrong folks, and one's 'employability' suffers. Going abroad used to seem palatable, but I'm not as footloose as I used to be.

Ironically, as my professional life sticks n the mud, my personal life continues on the up. Details, as ever withheld under the news embargo, but the day goes well.

I'll try to cheer up a bit over the next few days and provide y'all with some thrilling accounts of our daily heroism.