ED

It's 2:28 am and the ED is quiet. In 92 minutes, I will flag down a security guard and request a walk to my car. This is my fourth shift; and my feelings of utter uselessness and anxiety are steadily dissipating. The days immediately prior to a new rotation are inevitably unpleasant. As my worries mount, my brain starts to malfunction. Just last weekend, I went to the ATM and was unable to recall my PIN. After several incorrect tries, an error message informed me that I had exceeded my alotted attempts. My first shift was also a bit unnerving. I had the ill fortune of starting on a Thursday morning, the one time that ER residents are all at an educational conference. I was thus alone with the attending who pushed me to see as many patients as I could as fast as I could; he suggested that my threshold for not taking another patient would be the onset of gastritis. In other words, I could stop taking new patients if the stress of my circumstance started to make me ill.
Thankfully, I am much more settled in now. I've always been a night owl and the night shift suits me. I especially like the drive home at 4:00am. The streets are empty and still, the store fronts are dark, and the quiet soothes my ears.