On my own

So I walked into work this morning and the practice manager said “Doctor, we need to send you to the hospital in City Z because their doctor is sick and they have no doctor.”

Whaaaat? I’m still in training right?

I expressed my reservations (quite diplomatically) about handling an ENTIRE clinic on my own so soon, and the practice manager assured me that the other hospital wasn’t that busy, that the area managers approved it, and everyone totally thought I could handle it.

I then drove another 15 miles up the road to City Z while trying not to crap my pants.

As it turns out, the day went fine. I had two moments of big panic:

1.     Afternoon appointment, cat had been seen the previous day. Clients PO’ed about the bill exceeding the estimate yesterday and that all of the problems weren’t fixed yesterday. (It turned out to be a cat bite abscess which I got to lance and place a drain – yay!)

2.     Case from yesterday calls wanting to do a recheck and follow up. Problem is, they’re in City X and I can’t access City X’s appointment schedule or anything. After several phone calls we agreed that the client would come to City X tomorrow when I’m back.

I also learned how to use the controlled drug log (until now I haven’t had my own lock box to deal with). Yay?