Night shift= no sweat...literally

I'm starting my 2 weeks of night shift tomorrow! Contrary to what my colleagues have expressed, I am very excited to start! This out of proportion happiness is probably due to the fact that I'm just so anxious to start being a doctor already, a real doctor. Not that 2 weeks on nights makes me a "real" doctor by any stretch of the imagination.  I just really want to get out of this holding pattern I've been in during these past 2 weeks of "research" block. (I mean really, how can I do research when I haven't even seen my first patient of my medical career???)

 So I know nights is going to kick my butt in more ways than one but I'm actually very ready to start learning the real things that doctors do. I'm ready (I say that now) for the 3am call about a patient who is having chest pain and needs help. I'm ready to frantically run my little intern feet down the hall to a code and immediately realize that every ounce of medical knowledge I thought I had suddenly disappeared and I have absolutely no business being part of a code, much less running one! I feel like I'm ready for all of these things! Oh and just for the record, ready does not mean prepared. I'm fully aware of how unprepared I am to manage the needs of every and any medicine patient in the hospital at night. But I do think that it's more important to be ready than prepared in certain situations. For things like crazy night shifts and running codes that not only take you out of your comfort zone, but destroy any last memory you even had of feelings of comfort, there is no amount of time that could prepare you adequately. I have this feeling, and I've been told, that it's just one of those things that you have to go through to fully understand. I guess it's like the whole "you had to be there" jokes. Except I highly doubt I'll be laughing, maybe, who knows.

The things that I'm putting in the "bright side" category about night shift:
       -no waiting at the BAMC gate for 3x the amount of time it took you to actually drive there
       -no extra people (i.e. interns, visitors, random people that just get in the way) around to worry about
       -the lack of extra people will decrease the number of people that see me screw up!
       -The cooler temperatures during which I will be leaving. No sweating on the walk to the car, yes!!
       -The "learning experiences" I will get...*nervous laugh*

...and that's all I can think of right now. This list surely decrease starting tomorrow as I'm sure I will only see fewer bright sides (literally) after my first night shift.

Off to continue my quest to stay awake as long as I can and sleep all day tomorrow. (so far I'm failing miserably!)