Days to unemployment=28
I think that some time last year, things changed for me. Everything became easier. As doctors we spend more than half a decade in medical school, but that doesn’t at all prepare you for your first day on the wards when the nurse runs up to you and says
“The patient in room 4 is vomiting again, could you place an NGT, site a venflon and write him up for an antiemetic.”
But, the training does kick in, and with experience everything becomes easier. There was a lot of stuff going on with my patients today.
A man developed an irregular heart beat and became breathless and dizzy – I knew what to do.
A lady with emphysema “dropped her sats” to 72% whilst on oxygen – I knew what to do.
A man who was dying became distressed and agitated – I knew what to do.
A woman started vomiting blood – I knew what to do.
To me, stuff like this is easy to handle now. Stuff like this just doesn’t stress me or worry me like it used to. Occasionally, I find myself in situations where I feel out of my depth, but these are becoming fewer and less frequent.
Wednesday 4 July 2007
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2 comments:
Erm, what DO you do if a dying man becomes distressed and agitated? I sort of expected it to be the default reaction.
Homer,
With this particular man, it was a case of controlling his pain and giving a medication to help ease his breathing. There has been a lot of research done into the best way to care for dying people and one of the things we can do is to make sure a person's last few hours as peaceful as possible.
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