I am currently in week 8 of rotations. This means 2 months of walking, no-- make that frantically running ('cept when i was on neuro), the halls of a hospital, pretending I knew exactly what was going on, while having my third ulcer and shitting my pants ("that, my friend, is why I wear brown shoes" -Dr. Johnson). In truth, I think I've got the "I'm on top of everything look" while in front of the residents and attendings. By myself, when I'm running from floor to floor, the sheer terror takes over my face and people usually ask me whats wrong. =)
2 months of being in the hospital means that death has come across my path as well. And although I may joke about some things, this is not going to be a happy post for me.
Being on trauma surgery means you will be exposed to patients dying, which hit my med student partner and I hard on the first day, but nothing compared to what I experienced earlier this week.
Sunday night was my second day/night on call. Things were busy as usual (read "first call") and then we got a trauma red (1 * 1* 10* 20--meaning trauma red* 1 person* arriving in 10 minutes* trauma bay #). The normal trauma bay was packed so this trauma had to go to another room that usually isn't used for traumas. All we knew was it is a 19 yo who attempted hanging.
When the trauma arrived, it was the usual organized chaos. People were running around the small room, calling out for things they needed, yelling physical exam findings. Except I knew, with that dreaded-pit-in-my-stomach feeling, that this was going to be bad. She was cold to the touch. CPR had been going on for who knows how long. We, the med students, were actually told by the residents to go away, to do something else. My partner and I would visit and see them pushing more atropine, more epinephrine. They eventually got a pulse and a BP that was "acceptable" but she was on a ventilator and cerebral hypoxia was clear.
We found out that she was from Ohio, a freshman at the U here in town. That she didn't get into the sorority she wanted and felt suicidal. Her roommate found her.
I lost any sort of "composure" I could fake. I ran away, out of the ED, searching for a hiding spot so I could cry. Everyone keeps telling me that its OK to show how upset I was, how upset I am. That there is nothing wrong with it. But its impossible to think I could ever be of help while I break down like this. Its hard to remember what the hell I am doing here while faced with something like this. I am told that the sadness of these circumstances never goes away, you just learn how to deal with them differently or something.
That night she was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit.
She coded several hours later.
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the H & P of a medical student
1 comment:
You probably already know this by now but I wanted to say the reason why you cried was because you weren't involved in the code so you had the luxury of feeling. When you are busy resussing you don't have time to cry.
You cry after.
No one can warn you about the ones you cry for and the ones you don't by the way. I have cried for people I have never met and been stoic over a patient I have cared for for weeks.
Once it becomes your responsibility to provide care you stop crying pretty much. I don't really know why, there is probably a hundred different reasons.
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