Night Float

I am on nightfloat right now. What that means is that I work 7AM Sunday until 7AM Monday. All other days I work from 6:00 PM until 6:30 AM. I have Friday and Saturday off.

I have to say I kind of like working at night. I have done a lot of trauma and I occasionally pick up a couple of elective cases. It is a big change to go from doing 30 to 35 cases a week to doing half a dozen though.

I think I have the secret to nightfloat. You absolutely have to stay up all night so that you can sleep during the day and make the transition. I usually stay up until 4:30 AM and then catch a couple winks until signout. If you stay up all night and plan on becoming a vampire, nightfloat is no problem.

The only thing that is a little wired is the weekends. This Friday I had to take my car to the shop because an EPC light kept coming on. It turns out my catalytic converter went bad. The good news is it is covered by my warranty. Anyway I only got about 5 hours during the day on Friday. I went to bed at 9:30 but I woke up at midnight and stayed up until 4. I slept Saturday until 11AM, which was a little weird for my wife. I absolutely NEVER sleep past 7 under normal circumstances. I have to get up and get some coffee. I hate wasting the morning.

Night float is becoming a reality for most surgery programs now. If you are a level 1 trauma center you have to have a chief in house. The problem is that the attendings don't want any chiefs post-call during the week (meaning they would have to go home.) The perfect solution to the 80 hour workweek is having a night float team. I am a believer now. Our institution has had very good luck with it. The night float team gets to know every patient after a while. We have had great luck with continuity of care.

Anyway sorry for the random rambling. I don't really have any plastic surgery fellowship news at the moment. The only thing I have to report is that I am going to turn in my rank list some time this week. I still have to meet with our chairman of plastic surgery. I have met with everyone else.

May 20th is D-Day for us. Its time for us to storm the beach and see which ones of us will make the wall. I fully anticipate being machine gunned as soon as the ramp drops. I have been looking into hand fellowships.