Wednesday, September 15, 2004

For Whom These Bells Toll...

I am writing from the confines of my ICU. The machine bells create a certain melody I cannot easily describe. It's amazing how heart rates set to music can sound so beautiful and so scary at the same time.
I returned yesterday as per previous post and already had a big scare when in the first hour one of the patients crashed. She quickly recovered but not before my knees nearly gave out. If anyone saw the episode of scrubs where that intern is running towards a code and hide's in the closet then that's kind of what felt like except there was no closet to be found and everyone was looking at me to shout out some instructions. Three months off practice can play with the memory. Luckily the atropine kicked in pretty quickly and saved me from looking like a huge moron. It's coming back very quickly though and I am very impressed at how fast I am picking it up again.
It is also my first rotation as a second year resident and so the responsibility of supervising interns is also new to me. I am having a lot of trouble ordering people to do things and find myself always saying "if its' no trouble....". Although my interns won't hate me I am starting to wonder if it will cause a rebellion in the ranks as they begin to think that their resident is too nice and start walking all over me. I'll make sure to stick a few "do this" and "do that" before I leave today, get them back in line. Overall, I am impressed with myself and I'm amazed at how little they know and realizing that it was me about one year ago. The learning curve on this job is very steep.
Otherwise, I like rotating here because there are a few cute nurses. In our hospital you'de have a hard time finding a good looking female. Although my wife hates when I say this, it never hurts to have something easy on the eyes around all this misery. Not to mention....the medical students ;-}