Monday, February 09, 2009

By popular request: the Most Embarrassing Work Story

So I referred to my 2nd most embarrassing experience at work in a previous post and got a few requests for the most embarrassing work story.

So here it is:
Long ago, when I was a medicine intern, I passed out on rounds while making a presentation to the rest of the team. Morning rounds is where the team of doctors and nurses discuss what happened with individual patients overnight, generally in the hall outside the patient’s room. So there was an audience of 6 or so people there to watch me drop to the floor like a stone. Definitely embarrassing, since generally one wants to make a good impression on one's work colleagus, and not look like a sickly ghost.
Why did I pass out, you might wonder? I’d been awake for way too many hours, hadn’t eaten or drunk any liquids in a really long time, and had a stressful night in the hospital (an overwhelming number of sick patients). I was fine after the whole passing out thing, mainly just embarrassed, and work continued as usual until I left the hospital that night.
This is part of the reason there are now strict work hour regulations for people training to be doctors. Things are very different now.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

But if you'll remember, Kerry, that's the same story they told you ("Oh, things have changed so much from the bad old days") when you were interviewing...