Fulfilling my obligations

It's amazing to me the differences in priorities from one person to another. This week I have been struggling with a thousand and one things that need to be done soon, but not necessarily today. I haven't done them yet. And some of them are VERY important for my future. But I have done everything that supposed to be done today. Or yesterday. You get my point. One of the other residents apparently has a different view of what "has" to be done. He cancelled one of his clinic sessions this morning. A common occurrence. Up to this point, I haven't done anything about it. But today he was the only doc scheduled for the morning. And he didn't call to cancel until about 5 minutes before his first appointment. That was more than I could accept. I happened to be in the office this morning tying up some loose ends from my day yesterday. Rather than leave my team completely without a doctor when the first patient was already there, I stayed in the office to make sure there was a doctor there to see the people who HAD to be seen this morning.
Now, I understand being sick. In fact, I was sick two weeks ago. I used 6 half-days of sick time. But I made sure that I was at all 4 of my clinic sessions that week. My responsibility to those patients who have a scheduled appointment with me is stronger than my right to stay home in bed sick. What really annoys me about this resident is that his sick days are all for migraines, and he seems to be gone more than all the rest of us in his year put together. All the rest of us have headaches. Some of us, including me, have migraines, even. When we have clinic, we suck it up and come to work miserable. Not him. The worst part, in my mind, is the disrespect this behavior shows for his patients. No matter that they had an appointment to see him; no matter that they arranged their whole day to make sure they could be here to see him. That's really why I stayed this morning. I couldn't let the really sick ones dangle in the wind just because their doctor doesn't value them enough to hold up his end of the appointment bargain.
In happier news, I'm going to a CME dinner tonight. At my second favorite steak place in town. It's the newest place in town, very trendy, and very close to my house. I suppose nearness might make it tied for favorite, but the other place is in a period home, so it gets more points for atmosphere. Neither of these places are somewhere I would be able to eat if somebody else wasn't paying for it. So I'll admit it--I go to drug rep dinners. I flatter myself that I have more self-control than to blindly prescribe whatever buys me dinner. Besides, I can only write what's on Medicaid or whatever Medicare part D drug plan my patients have, anyway. Because we all know that insurance companies have more control over medical decisions than I have. But that's a different soapbox for a different day. Tonight's dinner is paid for by the Texas Academy of Family Physicians. Which means guilt-free steak and asparagus for even the drug-rep squeamish among us.