9:00 am, Saturday. I am at work, on my 24 hour call. When I walked in at 6:45 am, I found to my happy surprise that there was nothing scheduled on the O.R. board. And meanwhile, the pagers have been silent. I hope it stays this way, although I did sleep for nine hours last night and I'm refilled with energy.

My fellow resident who was subjected to a drug test and suspended for a week pending the results, is back. We were thrilled to see him. Unfortunately, he told me that he's been accepted to another residency program on the opposite coast. All along, he'd been secretly applying to transfer out. We'd suspected as much, since he was always traveling away for mysterious reasons, using the hospital fax machine, doing paperwork. We'd also wondered why his wife and kids were still on the other coast and didn't move here with him. I guess all along, he'd been looking for a back door exit.

I was both happy for him and sad as well. I immediately texted S, who'd left for the other coast on vacation yesterday. She immediately called me back (she secretly has a thing for him), and her reaction was the same. Shock, sadness, and happiness for him all mixed into one. I asked Chris why he thought we were so sad (after all, I wasn't really close to this guy). Chris quickly said, "Of course you're sad. You all started together. You were in the trenches together." It's a bit like Gray's Anatomy-- a small class of residents thrown into life changing experiences with one another. You take it for granted that you'll be together for these three years of hard work and long hours. You need each other.

But I think there's another reason for why we're sad. We all had the same reaction: "Hey, I want to leave too! And I'm being left behind." It's a malignant program, difficult, and the hours are back-breaking. I myself have entertained fantasies of applying for transfer to another place, but I've held back. The way I've always been is that, once I've chosen something, I don't change. I've seriously thought about leaving anesthesia and returning to internal medicine, but I hate the idea of turning back, or giving up.

Then the selfish thoughts sink in. I hope the adminstration finds another resident to transfer into our class from another program to take this guy's place. Because if we're down one person, we'll have to make up for it and do even more on-calls.