April 20, 2019
“Mr. Jones,” I asked after I introduced myself to the old man on the gurney and his two adult children. “I hear you have something stuck up your backside?” “Yes, I’m afraid so,” he responded a bit sheepishly. “May I ask what it is?” I inquired curiously. “A shampoo bottle. One of the travel-size ones,” he responded. “Oh boy,” I…
April 20, 2019
The overweight middle-aged man was propped up on the EMS gurney and flanked by two police officers as he was being rolled in through the ambulance entrance. He was alert but somber and looking down at his blood-stained white shirt. “What’s that all about?” I asked the secretary, Dannie. “EMS called a little while ago and said there was a…
April 19, 2019
“Hey Doc,” said Darrel, one of the nurses, with a smile, “you should probably come see this psych patient EMS just brought in a little while ago. She’s bat shit crazy. I can’t get anywhere near her to place a line.” “Yeah?” I closed out of a patient chart and looked up, “What’s she up to?” “Man, she’s drooling and…
April 18, 2019
The man should have been in his prime, but lay in his 30s in his ICU bed when I returned back in the morning. I was on my medical intensive care unit rotation during residency. We were rounding with the attending ICU doctor, describing each patient’s illness and plan, when I heard the patient’s story. “Mr. Terry is a 35 year…
April 18, 2019
The EMS call alerted us to a young drowning victim en route. I dropped my chart and hurried to the resuscitation room. “Did they say how soon they’d be here?” I asked the head nurse, Cammie, who was hurriedly putting on gloves. “Did they say how old the kid is?” “They said they were just getting off the highway…and they…
April 16, 2019
I went into the room to update the woman about her elderly mother. Her critically Ill mother laying next to us. Ms. Zarova lived out of town in New Jersey, and recently had an acute illness called myxedema coma. She had improved somewhat, but her daughter and son in law thought she was getting worse in the rehab home. So the previous day the…
April 14, 2019
Mr. Jones was sick. You could tell from across the room. He was shriveled like a prune and was moaning like a goat. As the paramedics unloaded him onto the gurney, I asked one of them for his vitals and my hunch was confirmed. “Blood pressures are about 70 over palp, heart rates in the 130s, and we couldn’t really get an oxygen…