A vacation is a vacation is a vacation--best enjoyed without internet, phone or beeper. If you have a doc covering for you, let them cover. My patients know that when I'm on vacation, if they have a problem they can contact the covering doc.
In order to remain fresh and able to care for patients with best efforts I need times of rest: a good night sleep (at least when I'm not on call), Sundays to rest (remember the "day of rest"), and vacations to really recharge the batteries. Otherwise, I've discovered that I burn up very quickly. Fortunately, I have three other docs who do a great job covering for me in our call group.
One of the great dangers of an EMR is that we are tempted to never shut it off.
I'll be interested to hear what others think about this issue.
