I secretly love my white coat

So far, 2nd year has been treating me fairly well. It's the year that we are considered the "critical care resident", meaning we are handed all the patients that are most critical in the ED. Usually, there is only one 2nd year scheduled per shift, so, it can be a bit overwhelming at times. However, it just confirms that I really do love this job. Ok, sometimes I hate it. But usually I love it. Yesterday,I was sewing up a guy's face who was handcuffed to the stretcher and accompanied by NYPD, and I told him that if he didn't stop hitting on me, I would sew his lips shut. I think he believed me. This job is fun. I did a lumbar punture (spinal tap) on a woman the other day who, mid procedure, with me holding a very long spinal needle in her back, started saying "I'm going to turn up my amp to 11...it's one louder". I love that my patient quoted Spinal Tap while I was giving her a spinal tap. Classic. And just the other day, when I told my little 90 year old patient (who has no medical problems, and is more mentally alert than most 20 year olds) that she needed to be admitted to the hospital she exclaimed with surprising force "son of a bitch"! I couldn't stop laughing. (Don't worry, she was fine, just pulled a muscle and couldn't make it up to her 2nd floor apartment).

I also realized how much I loved ER after doing inpatient medicine for a month. I had my ICU rotation recently, which was probably the most traumatizing experience of my life...I am not meant for call. I am a very non-confrontational, easy to get along with person (yes, I am also very modest...), but when you have been up for 30 hours and the only doctor in charge of 15 of the sickest patients in the hospital, all alone and exhausted, and a nurse pages you every 2 minutes to put in an order for tylenol, the nasty in me comes out. And when you have to tell a woman that her 35 year old sister just died and there was nothing you could do to stop it, things get rough. The only good thing about the ICU was that I got to wear my white coat (the official, long white coat with my name and title inscribed on it, that I longed for as a med student when I was stuck wearing the required stupid short white coat.) In the ER, we are far too cool to wear a white coat. It's basically just scrub tops and cargo pants/scrub bottoms for us. We take pride in not wanting to look too polished. Secretly, I love my white coat...but the ICU is not worth it...