the list.

a concept totally foreign to anyone who's never been on overnight call, and far too familiar to anyone who has, is The List. you see, when the day team leaves, and the night team takes over, you get a list of all of the patients, with their name/problems/medications/allergies/pending labs etc. you clutch this like the lifeline it is. mrs. jones in room 123 needs something for pain? let me just check her allergies first. they're right here!
it looks something like this. except not so blurry in real life.



most people -at least here- then will fold the far edge of the list over (note the crease), making an elaborate system for tasks to be completed (usually with an empty box to be checked once done) as well as calls you've received overnight to be passed on to the day team when they come back. i prefer a three-part system for coding things, involving red pen and yellow highlighter. you might note the red pen notes scrawled in at signout. i like important checkboxes in red, 'fyi' sort of information in black, and yellow highlighting if things are blending together too much and i'm afraid i might miss them. this explains why every time i bend over, 6 different pens fly out of my pocket and down the hall, rolling along next to the nutragrain bars i've been stashing for 3 a.m., when i will become inexplicably frozen and ravenous-verging-on-hypoglycemic and the cafeteria is closed. and i take piles of blankets out of the warmer and huddle under them.

what was my point?
oh yes.
i decided last night that i need a check-box system for my life. the list never seems to fail. also, it's so satisfying! checked the 3 am hematocrit and it's looking good? check that box right off! cardiac ezymes trending down? check! so maybe i should be implementing this for myself. i'm envisioning check boxes like, "dry cleaning. dentist. eye doctor. cat to dentist." except i'm fairly sure that in real life, unlike the hospital, i would a) lose the list and b) probably never check anything off. plus, people would wonder why i was clutching a stapled packet of 8x11 paper at all times.
sigh.