Sunday irritability

I really don't like working Sundays. Selfishly, I can't help thinking about where I would rather be, what I would rather be doing. This is worst on Sundays, but also noticable on public holidays, everyone is a bit down thinking that the rest of the world is having a good time while we have to work.

Today I was extremely busy, and some of the patients were quite sick, and it was Sunday, and ... well, I just didn't control my temper. :( One of the ED residents paged me three times in less than ten minutes, then had me voice paged through the overhead PA system to call Emergency. Heart racing, I dropped everything and called ED - to discover that the resident wanted to remind me to see a baby with diarrhoea. I tore a long, bloody strip off her over the phone, then hung up. I felt so guilty afterwards - she had been inappropriate, but I wouldn't normally respond that way. I don't know why some people do this routinely - I felt terrible!

I have been thinking for a while that I am too "approachable", which encourages juniors to ring and just chat, instead of working up a child properly and giving a concise summary and plan. I wanted to encourage them to think for themselves more, to apply what they already know, but I don't think this is necessarily the best way to achieve that. I don't want to make them afraid to call me, as I remember being, but it does provide a certain incentive. Maybe surgical registrars are onto a good thing after all.

The remaining question is what I should do about it now? I went and saw the child and sent him home (as I knew I would) but the resident is avoiding me, and I'm allowing it. I think she should apologize to me, she undoubtedly feels the same. I know that I was right and she was inappropriate - she would never do that to an ortho reg! But in the interests of Christian reconciliation maybe I should apologize anyway, even though I don't think I was wrong? Or would that negate the points I wanted to make to her in the first place? Tricky...