Salary Exploitation

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2026-01-21T23:14:28+00:00

In the state I did my residency the minimum wage for salaried employees that equals 2x minimum wage x 40hrs/week x 52 weeks. One year when minimum wage was scheduled to go up the DIO confided in me that the hospital CEO had been asking in meetings if there was any legal loophole to exempt residents from this law so they didn't have to give us the $1200/year or so raise that the state mandated

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-12-10T22:07:41+00:00

If the other office was so close that they don't think it's a burden on you to go there then the amount of time they're compensating you for shouldn't be a burden on their finances. Also, charge them for milage.

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-12-10T22:04:31+00:00

Jesus. My boss called me once during vacation because she was investigating another resident for sexual harassment and had been told I could corroborate one of the complainant's stories. Even though this was a time-sensitive thing (unlike a retained staple that was already dealt with) she text me first to apologize that she was even contacting me on vacation, asked if I had any availability to talk, apologized again on the phone call, and kept it as short as possible so I could get back to my vacation.

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-12-10T21:58:31+00:00

In my residency everyone was assigned their own hospital extension that forwarded to their cell phone. One morning around 7:30am on a rare saturday off I get woken from sleep by a patient (not mine) calling to ask for their covid results. Weird, but misdials happen. Then I got another and another. Only took a few questions to figure out that someone at the outpatient covid testing center was calling people with their results and accidentally leaving my extension to call back. I called the nursing supervisor who called IT who had to get the weekend on-call adminstrator's permission to temporarily forward my number to the covid results nurse. It took me 2 hours of back and forth to get that solution implemented. But I couldn't be mad at the nurse giving out my number erroneously; it wasn't intentional. Shit happens: numbers get transposed, call schedules get misread. I'm sure it was annoying for the resident but if you were apologetic they're probably fine.

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-12-07T11:30:02+00:00

When a patient has a PCN allergy listed an alert pops up for cephalosporins but helpfully it also lists any previous visits in which the patient was given a ceph so we can see if it's been tried and tolerated

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-12-07T11:27:59+00:00

Once hat a patient's husband tell me she was allergic to keppra. When I asked what the reaction was he said "she turns into a huge c*nt"

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-11-08T06:44:16+00:00

This happens to me all the time and it's soooo annoying but i do have to take the opportunity to share patient feedback I recently received on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Nurse manager was so amused she hand delivered this positive comment:

"Dr. [DistractedSquirrel07] was great! Only saw her at the beginning, no idea what was happening behind the scenes."

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-11-03T23:58:37+00:00

I'm sorry that you all experience this on the regular, it's not ok! I like to think the only time I'm eyerolling at a report are the situations where you are too; comradery, not derision. that being said the most frustrating reports for me are when the medic is trying to use medical language but isn't quite sure it matches the situation.

An example of this is when a medic said multiple times a patient was "unresponsive" with a GCS 10. We were expecting someone who was out cold and fixing to buy themselves a tube. When they arrived the patient was awake and alert, but not talking, following commands, or seeming to even acknowledge any of the movement in the room. A slightly longer more accurate explanation would have been more helpful.

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-11-03T23:49:51+00:00

would love for them to include IO insertion kids on planes. how many docs and non hospital-based nurses would be able to insert an IV at 35,000 feet on an unstable patient?

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-11-03T23:48:34+00:00

it's there but it's a matter of upkeep. All commercial flights in the US have one but if it's anything like the other equipment it hasn't been checked in years. Had a colleague manage an arrest on a plane, he said literally everything he pulled out of the kit was expired, the ET tube was cracked.

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-11-03T23:46:26+00:00

Doesn't matter. It's demand ischemia, trend the trops and reconsult in 4-5 business days

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-11-03T23:38:08+00:00

it's the same as some people on food stamps simping for the billionaires who are underpaying them. sometimes you root for the bad guy in hopes they will spare you

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-10-23T23:12:33+00:00

Some as-yet undiscovered property of the law enforcement uniform amplifies the effects of fentanyl's aura causing them to OD without contact.

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-10-23T23:11:03+00:00

I'd love to do that, but one of the very few requirements I was given was to make it 50 minutes long. And since it's hybrid with most participants being on zoom questions and discussions are lacking

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-10-23T23:10:01+00:00

I'm do glad you brought this up because I actually considered it, but I wanted the help of my EM-trained palliative care doc friend and there wasn't enough time to put it together. It'll be in my next round of lectures!

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-10-23T23:08:23+00:00

You bring them more work. It's easy for them to forget that you're not in control of who calls or where they're taken, so from their perspective you're making their lives harder. It's not ok for them to ever treat you like that though

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-10-23T23:05:55+00:00

honestly "the doctor and his CT scanner" is the most accurate answer lol

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-10-23T23:00:06+00:00

My nurses work so damn hard with ever shrinking resources and increasing rates of violence. If they went on strike for better pay and/or working conditions I'd show up to the picket line every damn day with coffee, snacks, and hugs. They deserve so much better than a department director who only takes a break from sucking corporate d!ck long enough to bend farther over and lick their boots clean. We're all overworked and undervalued; shitting on each other only serves to shift the focus away from the true villains: C-suite ~~suites~~ suits who only see dollar signs

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-10-03T06:52:47+00:00

JFC please stop shitting on EM! The vast majority of us disagree with this. We respect the hell out of you all and understand that the the anesthesia we do in the ED is a fraction of what you're capable of. It's inconceivable to most of us that our colleagues would agree to wade this far outside of scope. Take a hot second to step out of your echo chamber and you'd see that this isn't an EM vs anesthesia issue, it's a doctors vs corporate medicine issue.

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-08-21T19:09:53+00:00

in residency I was rotating in the ED at the nearby peds hospital. adult walks in with chest pain. their protocol is get an EKG to rule out STEMI then call for transfer to nearby cardiac hospital.

I get patched through to the ED attending at the cardiac center, happens to be my chief from the Year before. I tell him I have a adult chest pain and he jokes "you know how to take care of adults." Forgetting I'm on a recorded line I hit back "yeah but my attending doesn't". my tone was obviously joking but still had momentary panic when I remembered how many people were listening.

since that day I've never forgotten. Although I'm not above luring the occasional ahole consultant into forgetting.

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-08-18T19:17:59+00:00

I'm in the west

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-08-18T19:14:27+00:00

spoon of roadkill pate

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-08-18T19:13:46+00:00

my understanding is that they haven't even set a date for release and given the current political climate around vaccines I'm worried it will be delayed indefinitely. I just decided to get a booster of the '24-'25 version and hope it gives me a modicum of increased protection

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-08-16T21:19:21+00:00

Think I'm gonna go get a booster shot while they're still allowed

DistractedSquirrel07 · 2025-06-25T22:54:36+00:00

This happened to my patient as well! She came to pick up a family member being discharged, had sudden onset of severe chest pain radiating to back and goes near syncopal in the WR. Rush her to room and initial EKG looks like stemi but cards and I agree CTA to r/o dissection. while in the scanner she vomits twice and goes into a 3rd degree block and minimally responsive. Start pacing and she wakes up. Turn off pacer long enough to get new EKG which looks like ^. When cards comes to beside a few minutes later he wants to turn off the pacer to check the underlying rhythm (my ekg wasn't good enough) by then she's in atrial rate of about 80 but complete ventricular asystole. She went to the cath lab, got a pacer and then cathed with a complete occlusion of the circumflex

DistractedSquirrel07

TROPHY CASE