I'm already looking forward to...

- not being on call (i.e. having to sleep right next to my perpetual-silent-mode-phone so that I won't miss an emergency call)

- sleeping on time and waking up on time (for a change)

- having a schedule that I can live with

- reading a few more chapters of the Lord of the Ring Trilogy

- meeting a few old friends, and making new ones

- escaping the intrigues and all (no comment!)

- real rest while still being productive!

A lot for just five days, isn't it?

It's been a hectic week (finally about to end this Saturday!) since I went on double duty then had to forgo the usual every-three-day rotation to be assigned to the MRI during office hours while the MRI consultant is out-of-the-country for a conference.

It's hilariously exhausting to:

- Have the DCC (Disaster Coordinating Council) a.k.a. tandem of J.M. and K.L., the most junior MRI-techs giggle hilariously over one mis-scan (mistakes while scanning and or filming) after another.

-Almost freeze to death everytime R.B. arrives from travelling 2-3 hours from his hometown and turning up the central air conditioning again.

- Deal with patients demanding results when results cannot be promised at the usual 24-hours after sccanning release time (pending if Doctora is not exhausted enough to open the sent images and type them.

-Re-edit the results and signing for them (and also wasting a lot of yellow sheets --- try editing something techinical when you just had been woken up a couple of times at dawn!).

-Listen to the racket (some MRI-techs love their noisy music --or is it noise masquerading as music?).

-Snack without fear of being found out...

-Have the MRI-techs almost caught by the hospital medical director playing NBA via bluetooth sharing on PSP while on hospital duty.

-Make the call on sequences to be taken (and decide if contrast administration is necessary-- yikes!)

I enjoyed it, though... Unfortunately, I haven't found the time to complete my study goals for the next in-service exams because of this.

I thought about this post when the currently rotating senior clerk/intern in our department said to me: "Doc, I don't think you would ever grow old rotating here with such funny people to work with." And it's true... The radiologic technologists (radtechs for short) can be crazy... Majority of them (I'm beginning to think it's a requirement before you get hired at our institution) can make a gay impersonation close enough to fool any consultant radiologist (the sonologist actually got tricked into thinking this, when currently none of the radtechs are male homosexuals). The CT-scan techs did do Tuesday Vargas' ditty which went "Hindi ako bakla..." complete with costume for last year's Christmas party celebration. I also had this intern last month who would don two-three lead gowns the entire time he was assigned to the ct-scan.... No wonder his next 15 days of rotation was spent at the psychiatry department of the local government hospital. In the MRI, we usually hide the food in the drawers or in the dressind room, but i think the consultant knows that we eat in the control room when she's out. At lull periods, they are quick to hide their PSP's when she drops in at the control room, and everybody then pretends to be busy. We have also been hiding the water dispenser from the administrator in the IR dressing room for almost a year or so (water deliveries done only after office hours). Then, there's the free for all internet access from one of the network computers (the provider knows that we use it for the access because of some sort of team-sharing and the fact that the radtechs have shown not a few websites and message boards to the engineer while he was visiting). Crazy.... But this is where I work... ;)