Accent

I have *got* to quit forgetting my brekkie.

A few weeks back, I forgot my breakfast; that was one of the most memorable days I have had in quite some time. (If you missed it, check out the story marked ‘pants’ on the blog: www.downunderdoc.blogspot.com) Well, I should have known something was up today when I got about halfway to the hospital and realized I was hungry. And I have learned something worse than being the closest thing to a doctor on the ward when a Code Blue is called:

Being the closest thing to a doctor on the ward when *two* Code Blues are called for different patients.

At the same time.

No, I’m not making this up. A Code Blue is called when immediate help is needed; if something doesn’t happen pretty soon for a patient, they may be leaving via the back door, not the front door. So it’s kinda nice to have some expert help when this is going on, as opposed to your friendly neighborhood med student who is still trying to figure out which end of the stethoscope goes into his ears. Happily, both patients survived - at least until I left about 90 minutes later. Two codes in a day is unusual, but it shows how sick the patients we have are. And we won’t even discuss the third patient; earlier in the day, he decided to have serious rhythm problems with his heart. The funny thing was he would only get them when he was laying flat. As soon as the back of his bed was put up – so he was sitting – the rhythm came back to normal. Flat, he gets short of breath and the heart goes funny; Sitting up, he goes back to normal. We experimented with this a few times, just to see if it was an anomaly or something that happened all the time.

Which really means I was playing with his electric bed controls while no one else was looking…

Earlier this week, we ran into a bit of a problem with an outside phone call. It seems someone from the renal team (Still haven’t gotten my jersey, although I have been promised they’ll give me number 1/2. But I digress.) called a patient’s doctor to relay some information about what needed to be done after discharge from the hospital. The call was disconnected about halfway through, leaving out some vital pieces of information. So the doctor called back. He said he didn’t catch the doctor’s name, but it was the one with an accent.

Now, while that may be a good way to identify folks in some places, let’s do a quick roll call of the renal team to see who he might be looking for: Raj? Shaundeep? Raj? Tasnim? Shantha? Bryan? Anyone else see the problem with this description?

And with that, it’s the weekend. With only one week left in Adelaide, I have big plans for this weekend: my favorite restaurant on Friday night, followed by lots of fun packing on Saturday. This is to be followed closely by a farewell party for me at a local pub. I’ll try to get some pictures onto the blog of all of this, if I get any free time. Not to mention pictures of me playing with the electric bed controls…

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