Not much to report today. I’m getting tired of dealing with the recalcitrant OR staff, and I hear that they’re getting tired of dealing with my high expectations, so I guess we’re mutually ready for me to move on. If I respected these people in the least, I would care about their poor opinion of me; since I am confident that they have no work ethic and no professional self-respect which would give them any right to judge, I could care less what they think of me. I’m polite to them (please and thank you, excuse me, sorry to hear your bad news), if sometimes repetitive when we actually need something in the next minute, and not five or ten minutes later. It’s too bad if they can’t even bother to be polite to my face, let alone behind my back. (And believe it or not, since I have a very poor memory for faces obscured by surgical masks, it’s taken me until this week to remember, when I walk into a room, whether the current scrub tech is one of the helpful ones or not; so it’s not like “give a dog a bad name” here.) There was one point today when, if I had wanted to act like a “real” surgeon, I could have started reading them a lecture (the attending being momentarily absent, and thus not available to do it). As it was, it seemed more efficient not to remonstrate, lest they be tempted to drag their feet any more. Also, although my chances of completely avoiding the surgeon’s notorious bad temper seem slim, I’d prefer to avoid voicing it at least until I’m a senior resident.

In other news, I’m still waiting for the first sticky snow of the season, although it’s been cold enough lately. I love the landscapes around here, and can’t wait to see what they look like with snow on them. (Although I’m not too thrilled about learning how to drive on ice. I still get lost and skid to a halt at unexpected stop signs too much to enjoy the prospect of sliding while getting lost.)

And now that I’m about to move back to the opposite side of town from this hospital, I’ve discovered a lovely little Vietnamese restaurant which makes delicious food very quickly. So I’m stopping there as often as possible in order to make up for lost time.