- I finished a case around 2330 and crawled into bed at midnight. The pager was silent. I awoke at 0757, three minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I got more sleep on call than on any night for the preceeding two weeks. That's how a call should be!
- While stopping by another first-year resident's operating room (for reasons that do not need discussed here), the surgeon asked for 4000 units of intravenous heparin. Because I was standing between the resident and the cart, I opened a syringe, drew up 10cc of the standard concentration of heparin (1000 units per cc) and was about to label it when the resident took it from me. "What's this?" he asked. "Heparin." "What concentration?" "The normal--1000 units per cc." "Then why did you give me 10cc's?" "Because the surgeon might ask you to give more later." Without a word, he then proceeded to open the cart's drawer, and pulled out another vial of heparin. "Was this what you used?" "Yes." At this point, he looked into the trash, rescued the empty vial from which I'd drawn up the syringe, and compared it to the one in the drawer. At this point, the surgeon asked if the heparin was in yet. Only then did he administer it!
- I was talking to a patient whom I was originally going to take care of, but who was now going to have anesthesia administered by another resident. She'd requested that I take care of her (since she'd had me twice before) but it didn't work out. We were in the preoperative holding area, and she was going to have her surgery in an hour or two. Feeling a little bad, I gave the nearly-eighty-year-old's hand a squeeze and said, "If you're still around tomorrow, I'll come by and see you." The double entendre, unfortunately, was lost on no one!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Open mouth; insert foot
Two, yea, three things of note happened whilst on call last night.
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4 comments:
Whilst driving to the next village the orthopedist here in Mex. was telling me about how he does minor surgeries here serving as both the surgeon and anesthesiologist. He's a native Texan and has learned to adapt =).
so points #2 and #3 were what happen as a result of a good night's sleep? What happens when you are functioning on limited sleep? Scary!
Good point. However, in response to what you're highlighting, I would say that my slip of the tongue was not related to my rest, but rather to the complexities of English idioms. "Still around," can mean close by, as well as still living. In almost all contexts, it's immediately clear which meaning is intended, so it's said without even thinking. In the hospital context (especially before surgery), the two meanings would both make sense. So it's more of an issue of intuitively thinking about the context in which we speak English.
Isn't language wonderful?
I'm impressed about the orthopedic surgeon! From my experience, the orthopedic surgeons know about the least about anesthesia of all the various types of surgeons. I wonder if he has a nurse to help him monitor vital signs?
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