There is no always. When I get that call, if I don’t feel I can order what I’m being asked for, I always try to get to the patient’s room and suss out the situation for myself.

It’s unfortunate that often when you get that call you have been on shift for between twenty and thirty hours. It’s objectively awful to be woken up from a few short minutes of rest to address something — nothing feels like a big enough deal when you’re that tired. If I get frustrated, I remind myself that the nurse phoning me did not invent the institution of 30-hour call, which is the real problem.

If I have bile left over, I direct it at the stupid hospital administrations that don’t have protocols in place such that a ten-year veteran of floor nursing can give a patient a tylenol without calling me.