From: 1:32, Tuesday, May 19th
It’s after 1am and I am wired from my first ED shift, so before I sleep it off, let me unload: First, not much sleep last night (nerves + sore throat + chills). Second, early morning to get to the hospital for HR paperwork, etc. Third, as my shift starts one of the docs says to me: I’ve never started a shift this busy. My preceptor comes an hour later and we hit the ground running. 22 patients:
Vertigo
N/V/D x 2
Can’t swallow after tonsillectomy
Syncope
Snowblindness
Back pain x 2
Cellulitis x 2
Chest Pain x 2
Humerus Fracture
Toe vs. Soccer Ball
Dystonic Drug Reaction
IBS x 2
Pneumonia in Lung Cancer Pt
Viral Syndrome x 2
Hypertension and swelling
DVT
The youngest was 4 months and the oldest was 88 years.
I got my first pimping an hour into it. “What kills patients with aortic dissection?” I got it wrong, incorrectly guessing that it ruptures and the patient exsanguinates. He knew the answer, because just the shift before he had cracked some dude’s chest in the middle of the ER and released the pericardial tamponade. He was the talk of the town and the buzz was still palpable in the ER. It was a fair question.
I won’t typically bore you with a list of patient diagnoses in future posts. But I thought this would give you an idea of what I may see in the ER. Plus, without the camera cable I have no pictures yet. Thus, I am working on the 1000 words necessary to match what could have been uploaded in a few seconds.
I am off the next two days. Goals are 1: kick this cold (only had one during didactic year, hoping this is my one for clinical year). 2: review some things like ortho that I have forgotten all about. 3: Explore WI. 4: Resist the temptation to go snowmobiling, run out of gas, get left by friends high in the mountains without goggles or sunglasses and burn my corneas.