When Young Doctors Are On Call

by Jenny Blair, MD

 
It is midday - 2 a.m. I’m home, awake, listening to my pet crickets chirp. I just ate lunch. There are night shifts coming up and I might as well get into the rhythm.

After four years of medical school at Yale and two more as a fledgling M.D. at the University of Chicago’s emergency medicine residency, I’ve stopped thinking of night as a sacred time of rest. Too many of my nights have been work days. I sleep when I can, and have learned to create art