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Blood dripping on the floor.
It's funny, the way medicine works.
There's all sorts of hurry-up in between long periods. Of. Waiting.
There's the examination of the Office Patient-- essentially normal in most instances, and healthy too. Then there's the Inpatient, with all the associated complications.
Today I went from examining Really Sick People to healthy babies under the age of 18 months to examining Really Sick People again.
I was drooled on by an absolutely delightful (and pudgy) six month old. Six hours later, I made a very sick 19 year old bleed all over the floor as I attempted an arterial line.
I drew the routine hemoglobin and lead levels on a 12 month old. Eight hours later, I'm checking lab after LAB after LAB on the inpatients on the ward. Every one of them has a hemoglobin, some of them as often as every six hours.
I went from socializing with other physicians to sitting in a report room by myself, hunched over a computer and typing furiously, waiting for the next crisis to come and trying not to cry at the pictures of my kid that my husband so-thoughtfully emailed me so I wouldn't be lonely.
I know which one of these lives I like better.
There's all sorts of hurry-up in between long periods. Of. Waiting.
There's the examination of the Office Patient-- essentially normal in most instances, and healthy too. Then there's the Inpatient, with all the associated complications.
Today I went from examining Really Sick People to healthy babies under the age of 18 months to examining Really Sick People again.
I was drooled on by an absolutely delightful (and pudgy) six month old. Six hours later, I made a very sick 19 year old bleed all over the floor as I attempted an arterial line.
I drew the routine hemoglobin and lead levels on a 12 month old. Eight hours later, I'm checking lab after LAB after LAB on the inpatients on the ward. Every one of them has a hemoglobin, some of them as often as every six hours.
I went from socializing with other physicians to sitting in a report room by myself, hunched over a computer and typing furiously, waiting for the next crisis to come and trying not to cry at the pictures of my kid that my husband so-thoughtfully emailed me so I wouldn't be lonely.
I know which one of these lives I like better.