"The vorpal blade went snicker snack!"
I was on call last night. It was an eventful night. For the last two years I have been teaching residents and medical students. I enjoy it. My great reward is to watch young physicians mature in ability and discernment. The other great reward are the stories that can come only out of a teaching program. And then there are the oddities, personal quirks, etc....
I use the same call room every night I am on call. It is a large room with a private bath, a TV and computer. It is isolated and therefore generally quiet. I am obligated to 4-5 nights monthly in-hospital call. This is 50+ nights yearly, or 500 nights in 10 years, or 500 nights out of 3650. 14% of the those 10 years. This is not a prison sentence. When I was a resident I enjoyed the sense of responsibility for the floor. And mastery of it. I LIKED being a resident, at least most of the time. And I get the same satisfaction from in-house call. It is my floor, my service. And the call is usually not onerous, and whatever happens tends to be interesting. Or funny. Or both.
Last evening one of the residents was a bit late. he claimed that a couple of men in obvious distress caused him to stop, whereupon he found out they had a pregnant elephant in labor. The resident did what any responsible Ob/Gyn doctor would do. He stopped and delivered the elephant. While the story is obviously a whopper it became a mini-motif for the night.
This morning we learned that a 24 year old woman in the hospital called out for a doctor at 0200 (that's 2 AM for everyone else). She thought she had breast cancer. What? I can only presume that a, uh, 'personal' breast inspection had led to finding a lump, which in turn led to a call for a doctor, which led to a bedside breast exam at 0230. Who does breast self exam in the middle of the night? Whatever. One more crazy on call moment.
I was sleeping peacefully in my call room when I had a dream. Without all the nonsense of any dream, at the end I dreamt I was carrying a makeshift shield and sword. I entered a room where I was confronted by four men with staves and clubs. I began parrying their attacks with the sword. I suddenly found there were four archers almost directly behind me, and I turned to swipe at them. I turned back to my original attackers, one of whom tried to sweep around to my right. I parried him and quickly turned and aggressively attacked the three remaining men in front of me. I brought my sword around over my head in a slashing arc, and felt the pain of my attackers...
I fell out of bed.
I caught my right ear on the edge of the bedside table. My right forearm was arrested in mid sword stroke by the edge of the bedside table. And I landed in a heap of blankets on the floor, landing directly on my left elbow. Like Tigger, I had 'conquered' an unseen opponent.
Oh my aching body. I got ice for my point injuries, but my whole spine and neck are sore with being wrenched in my frantic attempts to beat back my assailants. that they were phantoms and I was asleep mean nothing. I still lost to the bedside table and the floor.
Ted Tsaltas, on call Knight....
I was on call last night. It was an eventful night. For the last two years I have been teaching residents and medical students. I enjoy it. My great reward is to watch young physicians mature in ability and discernment. The other great reward are the stories that can come only out of a teaching program. And then there are the oddities, personal quirks, etc....
I use the same call room every night I am on call. It is a large room with a private bath, a TV and computer. It is isolated and therefore generally quiet. I am obligated to 4-5 nights monthly in-hospital call. This is 50+ nights yearly, or 500 nights in 10 years, or 500 nights out of 3650. 14% of the those 10 years. This is not a prison sentence. When I was a resident I enjoyed the sense of responsibility for the floor. And mastery of it. I LIKED being a resident, at least most of the time. And I get the same satisfaction from in-house call. It is my floor, my service. And the call is usually not onerous, and whatever happens tends to be interesting. Or funny. Or both.
Last evening one of the residents was a bit late. he claimed that a couple of men in obvious distress caused him to stop, whereupon he found out they had a pregnant elephant in labor. The resident did what any responsible Ob/Gyn doctor would do. He stopped and delivered the elephant. While the story is obviously a whopper it became a mini-motif for the night.
This morning we learned that a 24 year old woman in the hospital called out for a doctor at 0200 (that's 2 AM for everyone else). She thought she had breast cancer. What? I can only presume that a, uh, 'personal' breast inspection had led to finding a lump, which in turn led to a call for a doctor, which led to a bedside breast exam at 0230. Who does breast self exam in the middle of the night? Whatever. One more crazy on call moment.
I was sleeping peacefully in my call room when I had a dream. Without all the nonsense of any dream, at the end I dreamt I was carrying a makeshift shield and sword. I entered a room where I was confronted by four men with staves and clubs. I began parrying their attacks with the sword. I suddenly found there were four archers almost directly behind me, and I turned to swipe at them. I turned back to my original attackers, one of whom tried to sweep around to my right. I parried him and quickly turned and aggressively attacked the three remaining men in front of me. I brought my sword around over my head in a slashing arc, and felt the pain of my attackers...
I fell out of bed.
I caught my right ear on the edge of the bedside table. My right forearm was arrested in mid sword stroke by the edge of the bedside table. And I landed in a heap of blankets on the floor, landing directly on my left elbow. Like Tigger, I had 'conquered' an unseen opponent.
Oh my aching body. I got ice for my point injuries, but my whole spine and neck are sore with being wrenched in my frantic attempts to beat back my assailants. that they were phantoms and I was asleep mean nothing. I still lost to the bedside table and the floor.
Ted Tsaltas, on call Knight....
Comments
Post a Comment