This week is my last week in palliative care. My only home palliative care patient sadly went to hospice today and has taken a real turn for the worse. Hopefully she'll still be there when I visit the residential hospice on Thursday. I'm not sure that I'm ever going to be a "palliative care physician" but I certainly learned more about looking after my own patients in the community until end of life.

Next up is MSK - a mixture of fracture clinic, hand clinic, arthritis program, rheumatology and OR time in ortho. I'm not really looking forward to 2 months of that! Here's wishing I didn't just request all my remaining vacation in June!

I can't say it with strong enough words to convey how I feel - I am surprised, outraged and very saddened by the news that the little medic has been diagnosed with testicular cancer. What a bomb dropped into the middle of his and Miss Bliss's lives. He is getting married shortly after I have, he started his first job at a similar time. I feel like we're in the same stage of life and yet he is facing this gigantic beast. I am so thankful for my health.

paged when not on call

Getting paged when you're not on call sucks. It makes you worry about your patients when you aren't supposed to be the one managing them and it makes you conflicted about whether to manage the problem or not because you're already on the phone. Especially when it's your patient and the on-call doctor doesn't really know them.

So... I dealt with the problem and then shut off my pager. Lesson learned, shut off the pager when you leave work!

I'm not sure how people do this palliative care thing all day every day. I can't give any more of myself or there will be nothing left. I haven't cried yet. I think it's coming.