Archives of The Cheerful Oncologist, Volume 2

Our tour through this strange and mysterious building known as The Museum of Medical Secrets has now reached the third room. Those who were not listening to the docent during his commentary on Room One and Room Two may perform an about-face and recap by clicking on the respective hyperlinks. The rest of you may walk on. Please raise your hand if you have a question or need to visit the lavoratory.

Despite the entreaties of some of their more anxious patients, most doctors are not available 365 days a year. If I may be so bold as to comment - this is a good thing. No sane person one would jump at the chance to be cared for by someone so overworked they looked like an extra from the cast of Night of the Living Dead. Doctors therefore typically rotate weekend duty with their partners or with friendly peers. In this standard arrangement the covering physician performs hospital rounds for his missing colleagues and then on Monday morning updates them about the events of the last two days.

This certainly sounds like a straightforward, if not a particularly uninspiring way to spend a weekend, but Oh, Oh, Oh! The trauma actually felt vigorously giving vast attention here! If the gentle readers could only experience the intrigue and mayhem coiled within those fateful 72 hours, they would gladly cancel their season pass to the Grand Guignol. Actually, weekend rounds are like going on a military patrol. One has to trudge hour after hour through dangerous territory, always under the risk of being attacked - in the doctor’s case by a difficult patient or problem.

Smart weekend warriors, therefore, approach call like a battle-hardened soldier saddling up for duty - with a mixture of preparation and trepidation. After sixteen years of taking call, I ought to know. The following assessment is completely hypothetical, of course. Here’s how I break the scenario down:

Wake Up Sleepyhead! Every Saturday morning on call I awaken to hear a debate between a little angel sitting on my right shoulder and some mustache-twirling creep in a red union suit perched on my left. It’s always the same argument - do I cut slumber short and dash off to my rounds, thereby guaranteeing I’ll be so exhausted by afternoon that the dog, finding me unconscious on the couch, will try to bury me - or do I sleep in? What’s the catch, you ask? The later I arrive at the hospital (fully rested, of course) the more family members there are hovering around the bed. If I start my work before the first rays of dawn caress my grimy windshield I’ll be more likely to finish up before the visitors arrive with their myriad of questions.

Dress Code? What Dress Code? Yes, I know that some physicians get a kick out of dressing up in fancy suits and pressed white shirts. Even I try to put a necktie on during the week, but come the weekend - forget it. Even that pompous flunky Hermann Goering got to romp around the Black Forest occasionally without having to don the clown outfit. Oh, I’ve paid the price for my “casual coordinates” look - once I got fired by a patient for showing up on Sunday sans socks. I now always wear socks, even at the risk of getting kicked out of the Preppy Doctor’s Club. As for keeping a smooth face - can you believe that some of my colleagues actually don’t even shave prior to hitting the highway for weekend rounds? May I be struck down by lightning if I’ve ever shown up at a nurses’ station stippled with stubble!

Yoo Hoo! Here I Am - Anyone Have a Crisis for Me? Doctors tend to be superstitious creatures, hence the well-known slang term black cloud, used to chastise physicians who tend to be an irresistable target for every possible medical crisis or lunatic patient available for quick and easy take-out. In order to minimize the risk of getting slammed with a horrific case I love to accomplish a perfect game, set and match of what I call “ghost rounds.” This is where the doctor walks onto the floor, sees his patients, writes his notes and orders in the chart and exits without any nurses ever noticing him. Hey, they can’t hurt you if they can’t see you, right? I’ve heard stories about interns who went months on service without anyone figuring out what their speciality was, but this could be apocryphal.

“You Look Marvelous!” “How ya’ doin’?” “I’m jes’ goin’ ’round checkin’ on folks.” Let’s face it - it’s hard to be committed to a complete and thorough evaluation of patients when the Saturday sun is streaming through the window, begging for a chance to baste a pasty-faced doctor with ultraviolet radiation. Just like Count Dracula being asked to sink his fangs into a victim of aplastic anemia, when I round on strangers I think - where’s my motivation? No matter how fabulous a job I do on the weekend, come Monday my partners will resume all responsibility for care, and all my hours of sacrifice will fade from memory faster than the laurels in my rose garden withering under the brutal August sun. So I tend to assume a folksy manner, dispensing words of encouragement without actually getting tangled up in the messy details of a patient’s prolonged and/or onerous hospital stay. Some experts call this crisis blindness. I call it slaloming, baby.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehn, Goodbye! Whether I spend five minutes or five hours tending to my weekend patients, there comes a time when I must enter my spaceship and return to Earth, to the land where my wife and family await me, to the place where my little doggie languishes, her tail wagging with anticipation. Thank God I am not someone who has to work 24 hours a day, like a philosopher. Being a physician is an unbelievably rewarding profession, as long as one is willing to put up with working weekends. Now that I think about it, it’s not so bad being on call. It does get one out of doing household chores, or yard work, or helping with homework - at least until I pull back into the garage.