ER: Fourth Day (Family Day)

I was supposed to work yesterday morning but ended up not going to work b/c I didn't want to work from 10:30 a.m. to 7:30 pm (worst case scenario), then go to bed two hours later to rise at 3:20 a.m. to get to work. Instead I spent the day running errands (writing my last batch of thank-you notes, dropping off my suit at the cleaners), getting things done that I normally would not have done had I worked that shift.

I reported to work at 4:00 a.m. to find a mostly empty ER. I immediately met up with my attending, Dr. L, whom I've also selected to be my grading attending. "I don't know what you've heard down the grapevine, but I don't do many procedures," she said. That was fine with me; I didn't want my grade in ER to be based on how straight my stitches were or how many LPs I do. That's not to say I don't want to get through my entire month without doing a single procedure, but since I'll be rotating with other attendings I'll probably get lots of opportunities to learn. And if I'm ever on at the same time as Dr. Trot, I'll be sure to get a few things in.

We saw several interesting cases today. One guy came in with a partial fingertip avulsion from accidentally hurting himself in the gym; it looked as though the tip of his finger (nail and all) had been ripped from his bone. It looked extremely painful but he didn't feel a thing (probably a blessing, and since it was such a complicated wound I had no problem letting Dr. L sew it up. The wound bled well, which was a good sign, but later the tip of his finger looked dusky, which was an ominous sign. The probability that he'll lose his finger tip is still very real, and the patient lamented that his wife was going to yell at him. Another guy about my age fell off a truck during a tailgate party and scraped a bunch of skin off the back of his head. Those were the notable traumas.

I spotted Garrett in the ER finally; he'd taken a week off to finish his interviews and was just now starting his ER rotation. There were an awful lot of family members with different problems in the ER today. One woman who'd been off her Xanax for two days alternating between expressing concern for her hospitalized husband and crying hysterically over her dog at the drop of a hat. Apparently she felt a seizure coming en route to the hospital and had to leave her dog in the truck when an ambulance picked her up. She kept wanting to leave AMA to get her dog, and finally someone called Animal Control to pick up her dog and ease her mind. Another woman needed an abscess drained, and as it turned out her sister's boyfriend was in another room, so at her request I got the sister and asked her to come hold the patient's hand during the I&D. That was a good thing; the poor patient screamed a LOT during the procedure. I saw one man for a knee injury, and two hours later I saw him in another patient's room. It turns out that patient was "the mother of his babies" and he was upset when she sent him out of the room as Dr. L revealed her labwork results to her. He wasn't too happy about that one. Then we treated a MVC victim whose daughter was also brought the Harris for injuries sustained in the same accident. It was crazy.

My shift ended at about 12:00 pm and I went to the lounge to find Garrett struggling over how to schedule his shifts after Jeremy, Kate, Adam, and I already chose the best times for ourselves. I felt bad for him so to help out I gave up some of my morning shifts for him in exchange for later times or dates. It was nothing big since the two of us worked together in the ICU back in September and I knew that he, at least, would appreciate my gesture.