Thursday 12 February 2009

So i'm alive then?

There was a bit of a sticky situation on the ward the other day, a patient had mass doses of morphine and was still in severe pain and was starting to moan really loudly; and all the doctors on call were really busy elswhere and were unable to answer their bleeps straight away. The bp, heart and resp rate were on the up, and in the middle of the situation i got told to quickly do an ECG on the patient...and i didn't know how to.

I obviously made the team aware of this, as although i've had nurses and other hcas teaching me how to do it before, but when i saw the patient in so much pain i just didn't feel confident. i fetched the machine over, plugged it into the mains and then felt useless as i watched others members on the ward attatching the sticky tabs and the relevent leads. The doctors finally arrived, and i watched their diagnostic process, taking bloods from the patients, feeling around the area, asking the patient to describe the pain, and discussing among the team the possible cause of the patient's sudden pain. Alas with no obvious signs from the bloods, a bladder scanner revealed urine retention - and after a swift insertion of a urinary catheter by the nurse, the patient slowly but surely began to feel better, and a few hours on was happily sitting up talking to the visiting family

- i was really happy to see the patient recover from the bout of pain so quickly; but was not so happy when the FY2 doctor thought i had thrown his tourniquet away, and made me dig through the bin to see if it was in there... it was later revealed, that the FY2 had left it on the patient's bed ~.~

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"so i'm alive then?" - The first time an elderly male patient asked this after i had taken his temperature, i found it quite sweet, but now i just find it cringey - as every patient seems to be saying it these days... where did it all start?!!
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A few people at work know i have an offer now (only because they sussed out the reason as to why i was there and had asked me about it, or they are among the gap year applicants), but generally most people still think im doing this because i can't find a lab job - and i prefer it this way, as i get to avoid having some of the weird looks some of the other gap year hcas get.

1 comment:

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