Post Call Disorientation Syndrome

I propose that Post Call Disorientation Syndrome should be a new category in the upcoming DSM-V.  You can identify this syndrome if you meet the following criteria:

1.   When asked a question during morning rounds (24+ hours after you first entered the hospital), you just start laughing at the fact that they actually expect you to know the answer and to speak intelligently.  You know that your central nervous system lost these capabilities previously in the night and cannot recover them so easily.

2.   Eating, showering, and sleeping are all equally urgent priorities.  It can be difficult to know which one to do first.  Like the Sims.

3.   When you wake up and don’t know the day, time, or place, and yet you must still assess the mental status of your patients.  This can lead to awkward questions such as “Is today really Friday?” and “Wow, it’s November already?”.

4.   You start getting hungry at random times and Pop-Tarts seem like a good idea for a meal at 2 am.

5.   Your scrubs definitely smell weird, whether you are aware of this or not.

6.   When post-call conversations with parents are initiated by incomprehensible blabber and usually followed by the subsequent questions: 1) did you eat; and 2) is the patient alive?

7.   You appear slighlty manic when you leave the hospital and really, really hope that you don't see people you know on the way home.

8.   You notice that you hold your hands in a neutral position above the waist at all times, even when not scrubbed in to a surgery.  You start to wonder about classical conditioning…and if you will ever be free again.

9.   You leave the OR after x number of hours and are blinded by sunlight.  This is equivalent to a vampire being burned by the sun.  Or a newborn animal just entering the world for the first time.  Or a blind person that can miraculously see again.

10. Post-call sleep transcends space and time.  You go off the grid for several hours, ignore phone calls and text messages, and have strange dreams that involve the hospital.  


Post Call Disorientation Syndrome is aptly demonstrated by this gem:
http://whatshouldwecallmedschool.tumblr.com/post/29683353941/leaving-the-hospital-after-a-24-hour-im-call