The downside of the late shift

So my 9 am - 5:30 pm schedule this week seems pretty nice, until you consider that I'm with the RD who is on duty for an hour past when the other RD's leave for the day. That means any order or consult that comes in late has to be addressed by her (or me, as the case may be). Today, as we were finishing up some charting, we got a call from a nurse to do an instruct for a pt about to be discharged. The nurse assured us that it was just a refresher about T2DM, so I ran up with a few handouts to take care of it. Well, the pt was knocked out on Ativan. The instruct was actually for the 3 family members who will now be caring for her, and they had never learned anything about DM before. So I gave a brief lesson with what I had, let them look over it while I ran down to the office for more materials and printed off a meal plan, then finished up the basic intro lesson. Then, they asked for additional copies (more running involved) and started asking tons of questions about a heart healthy diet and salt restriction. I walked out of the hospital an hour late today. At least the family was really nice and grateful for my help.