The year while doing my senior clerkship, I received a homemade Christmas Card/Joke depicting me as the "Sleeping Intern/Senior Clerk".... My friends knew exactly the reason why I deserved this distinction....

Reason 1: A code was called early in the morning. The medical resident attempted to insert a line. Failing to do so the first time, he handed me the IV cath while he searched for another site. I absentmindedly placed the the IV catheter on the bedside table. He put out his hand to receive the IV cath from me to re-use. Not a few eyes were on me as I was about to hand it back to him. In a split second he pause and asked, "Sterile pa na? (Is it still sterile?)". It took me about a minute to react, withdraw my hand from his reach with the IV cath in hand and say, "Ay, Doc, dili na diay... (Doctor, it's not sterile anymore...)." Later that day, I was the butt of jokes from my male groupmates for the near fiasco.

Reason 2: I was assigned to the 3rd and 4th floors a private hospital, mostly made up of private rooms. Not having many morbid patients, I decided to take a snooze. I was still disoriented upon waking up when the nurse-on-duty casually commented, "Doc, wala diay ka kadungog sa code sa ER? (Doctor, didn't you hear the code called for the ER?)." I quickly tested my on-duty groupmate. She confirmed what the nurse said, but added that I should not worry about being cited for a possible extension since the patient was declared dead on arrival anyway. That morning during endorsements, she shook her head at me and said, "You were the only one who wasn't able to wake up and respond to the code; Everyone else was there."

Reason 3: While on neurosurgery rotation, I was sleeping on the counter at the nurse's station sometime past dawn. The resident had to drum his knuckles on the counter for close to a minute steer me off of dreamland. I raised my head and inquired, "Yes, Doc?" "We have a patient in the ER,"he said. I was still bleary eyed as I followed him down the stairs to see the patient.

Reason 4: I had just stirred from sleeping on the ER reception table while on pediatrics rotation. The resident was attending to a patient at that time, but she turned to me and gave the shocked remark, "Hoy, panudlay intawon! (Hey, comb your hair!)" Talk about bad hair days....

Nowadays, while on duty, I usually get to sleep until the radiologic technologist, senior clerk, post graduate intern, resident or consultant wakes me up to give preliminary readings of plain radiographs, ct-scan or mri images. I guess somethings never change...