IM Sub I: Post-Call

We had a total of 8 new patients on our service this morning; yesterday was apparently so slow that the team never capped. Greg blamed it on the Olympic opening ceremony, that people probably said, "Screw the abdominal pain, I'm watching the Olympics!" Some of my neighbors did have a party last night and kept me awake until almost 2 a.m.; needless to say I was very pissed. My patient with two colon masses went through a colon resection with no complications. My gallbladder cancer patient is much better. My diabetic patient with ARF is just "hanging out" for the weekend, but I really like talking to him. He used to be a nurse, so he'd talk about how nurses these days don't do as much (or know as much) as he did back in his day. Not to mention he has a great view of UT from his room.

One of Zack's patients had a "psychotic episode" but we didn't know what he meant until we actually saw the patient himself. He'd been admitted for COPD exacerbation, and when we first spoke to him he was polite and well-mannered. Then Dr. C asked him if he's ever been depressed or anxious, and the patient instantly changed. It was a total Jekyll and Hyde transformation; even though he remained in bed, he immediately began yelling and ranting about why everyone thinks he has a mental problem, that women were manipulative bitches, that foreigners and communists were taking over (it didn't help that our team had two Caucasians, one Bosnian, and three Asians), among other things. He ended each sentence with a weird spitting sound, and Dr. C asked a nurse if we needed to call a Code Gray (aggression in patients). "No, he'll calm down if you leave him alone," she said, so we closed the curtain on him so he wouldn't see us. Even with the curtain drawn, he continued to ramble for another 1 or 2 minutes, at one point making squawking sounds like a chicken. Thank goodness he couldn't see us; we couldn't help but laugh when we heard his squawks. Other than that, the rest of our patients were okay overall. We had several chest pain patients in obs that were discharged later in the day, which is good b/c Greg will admit four more tomorrow morning. An and Yan have the day off tomorrow, so it'll be me and the guys. Joy...