For 19 years since residency, I have worked in one facility and one facility only.  I have paced its halls and touched its walls, known every crack and heard every sound.  I have seen life and death, laughed and cried there.  And yet, I began to have a wandering eye…

Actually, I needed a little more immediate cash.  I began to flirt with … locums!

So, after some phone calls, some furtive, flirtatious e-mails, some letters and forms, I found myself at Hospital #2!  It was exciting and terrifying.  We had never met in person, I had only read about it online.

I packed a bag, and left my town behind.  When I saw Hospital # 2, I was intrigued.  Not what I expected, but not bad.  Certainly, available … if you know what I mean!

And after quick introductions, we spent the night together.

It wasn’t easy at first; the charting was odd, and the layout new.  The staff nice and professional, but not the ones I knew so well.  But it worked.

The next morning I left, rested and came back to do it all again!  I felt an odd kind of liberation, like a new man.  I had believed I could only practice in one place, that I would only be loved and accepted by one facility.

How wrong I was!  I am a  good doctor; and my skills go with me wherever I go; now matter how many times I cheat on my old, tried and true place of employment.

I’m home now; back to the routine.  But with a new found sense of adventure.  I feel free, I feel stronger … and I feel a little naughty (and a bit more financially stable) after my romp with Hospital #2.

Call me “hospital ho,” but I’m going back again next month.

Because with one son going to college next year, and a few more kids behind, with reimbursements down and partners unwilling, and unable, to give up shifts, I’ll keep cheating … and getting paid for it.  As long as the money is good.

Edwin Leap is an emergency physician who blogs at edwinleap.com and is the author of The Practice Test.