Swoon

Just call me Elvis.

Or maybe the Beatles - either way, I would need to grow my hair out. I know just how they feel, having people swoon when you enter a room. And while I know I’m a cute medical student, it’s a little much of a reaction for my arrivals. Even for me. Let me explain.

Twice in the past week, I have had patients do a ‘Vasovagal’ in my presence. While I could give you some flashy explanation as to what that means, complete with graphs and charts, a four-page research paper and a diagram or two, all it really means is someone passed out. This can happen for lots of reasons; in fact, my dear friend Dubya had one a few years ago when he swallowed a pretzel and it got stuck in his throat.

You’d think Dick would have taught him to swallow by now.

Anyway, the first patient was an older gentleman having a Roto-Rooter job, uh, down there. He was sedated but awake for the procedure (what was he *thinking*?) and mentioned to the doctor that he was feeling a little funny. Next thing you know the panel listing his statistics goes blank: No pulse, no breathing, no blood pressure.

It’s not often you get to see an attending doctor sprint.

The second patient was young – younger than me, anyway. Like most people, he wasn’t a fan of needles being poked into him. That said, he still needed to have an IV line put in, and I was asked to do the deed. So with needle in hand, I went for the vein.

I missed on my first try.

And my second try.

At this point, Junior is looking about as pale as the sheets on his bed. Next thing I know, the doctor takes over, puts in an IV line into the kid’s other arm and starts filling him full of fluid and drugs. The outcome was the same in both cases – after some fluids and some injections, they were fine. After a little swoon and some support, both were chatting happily with the nervous doctor and scared medical student.

Ya know, now that I think about having two guys faint in my presence – not exactly my target audience…

One thing we have to do in this term is a morning ward round with the Acute Pain Service. Now before anyone gets excited, you don’t get to go around giving people ‘noogies’ and asking ‘Does this hurt?’ (My brother – if my years of experience growing up with him are any indication – would be a natural for *that* particular service. But I digress.) The APS folks go around to the patients after major surgery and see if they are comfortable – getting enough of the right drugs, sleeping comfortably, fluffing their pillow, singing bedtime songs if need be. It was an interesting morning I spent with them, but while they talked about morphine drips, injections for pain, and sleeping pills, they managed to miss the most important treatment for a boo-boo: Kissing it and making it better.

And somehow they didn’t seem too thrilled when I offered it up to the cute young lady who just had her appendix out…

And with that, it’s the weekend. I’m halfway done with Anesthetics, which seems weird. I’ll spend some time at FMC this weekend gathering info for the paper that’s due in a few weeks; I’ll also spend time away from the hospital socializing with friends. Not to mention getting my polyester jumpsuit out of the closet…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan