Tie

Has anyone seen my tie?

Well, *any* of my ties. I can’t seem to find them, and I kinda need them.

Let me explain. I always wear a tie when I’m around patients. While some of my classmates think I’m uptight or that it’s out of respect for the patient, it’s really just so folks think I’m important and let me in front of them in the lunch line. The exceptions have been during psych, when I was told to ditch the tie (something about it being a great way for a patient to hurt *me*); the other was during the last term, when I got to wear PJ’s, er, scrubs.

But reality reared its ugly head this week.

While most of my classmates are filling their fourth year with rotations in Fiji or surfing, er, studying in Samoa, I am returning to 6G, the Renal Ward. For those of you who weren’t around, or just don’t remember, I spent 5 weeks last year tending to patients with kidney problems. I decided it was a great experience, so I asked to go back this year for a 6-week rotation. (Of course, most of my classmates think I have lost most of my brain cells when I mention that I am voluntarily going back to 6G. But I digress.) This past Tuesday (Monday was a holiday) saw me searching in vain for a tie to match a freshly-pressed shirt.

And we won’t even discuss how many attempts it took to tie it…

While most wards have a rotating staff and whatever nurses they can find to work, the Renal Ward has a regular cast of characters (Rogues Gallery?) in both the staff and nurses – many have worked there for years. Most of them remember me from last year, which is both good and bad: good in that they know me; bad in they actually expect me to understand what is going on. The only group of folks who don’t me is the new junior doctors. While the docs are happy to have me help, they are still trying to figure out what I can do. On my first day, they asked me to draw some blood from 2 patients for some lab tests. It went well, which always helps with that whole first-impression thing.

But here’s where it gets interesting: I show up the next morning all chipper, which should have been the first sign something was going to go wrong. A nurse says that she has a bone to pick with me, as the paperwork I sent off with the blood yesterday wasn’t complete and the lab called and complained. I handed her a completed form and she said it didn’t matter: the patient was now in the ICU. I had a suspicion she was playing a joke on me, so I went to the computer to see where that patient was hiding:

Yep. ICU. While I was attempting to get all three of my brain cells firing at the same time to figure out how this could have possibly happened, I noticed we have *two* patients in the ICU – which is quite odd, as we only have 9 patients in total. So I looked at the name of the other patient to figure out why they might be there. Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, I have the golden touch: Both patients I drew blood from the day before were in ICU.

Imagine how the remaining patients are cowering every time I come near them with a needle!

And with that, it’s the weekend. I’ll have dinner with some friends tonight, and spend the rest of the weekend relaxing and surviving the heat. Not to mention learning how to tie this tie…

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