The Intern Strikes Back!

After having such an awful run with cannulas last night, tonight has been my turn to score some runs on the board.

Early at the end of my shift last night we had a MET call and I finally broke my ABG drought by getting a nice bright red arterial sample first go on some old lady who was sick.

Then tonight I had another old lady with resp problems and... you guessed it... first go ABG again! (slam dunk and hi-fives all round thankyou very much) I luv watching the bright red blood pulsate into the ABG tube... looks much more macho than the passively filled venous tubes that gently rise up against the negative pressured vacutainers.

Then nailed a 22 gaguge cannula into an old lady first attempt with not a drop of blood anywhere! Flushed like a dream and I was on such a roll!

That roll kinda got broken pretty quickly when I had to take 4 goes at cannulating a 22 yr old male (post MVA)... I can't believe that after being able to hit so many old poeple so easily.. I stuggled so much with a young healthy male's veins.

"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble"

Hehehe.

Got a bit miffed tonight when I got hammered by a certain registrar (wont name names and it WASN'T the on call one) when I called them about one of their patients. This registrar had been bragging earlier about how they were a 'stone wall' (ie they would turf and not let any patients thru unless really needing treatment). So when one of their patients got sick and I was quite concerned that they needed an urgent revision of their operation, I got seriously cut down.

"Why didn't you ____ to the patient?" (I had forgotten one relatively minor thing - no thanks for the otherwise thorough assessment of the patient)

Didn't help that the symptoms the patient complained of had partially resolved by the time the reg got there. So I looked like a stupid intern who didn't know how to assess the patient (even though they DID have signs!) and so I got a rather abrupt phone call from the reg which although not overtly containing a rebuke was hostile enough.

Maybe I'm reading too much into that phone conversation... but I just got really peeved that I was made to feel so crap by someone who I'm supposed to turn to for help. I know they get a lot of calls to come and see patients who are otherwise well. But I was seriously concerned about this patient. And even if I AM a dumb intern, can't they at least be nice about it whilst we settle into our jobs as "referral screeners" for them on night shift?

I guess it was probably deserved anyway and I'm prob reading too much into things anyway. It's prob cos the night has been relatively hectic.

Apparently the evening RMO was swamped with MET calls and sick patients which meant by the time she handed over to me, hardly any of the ward stuff had been done which meant I spent 5 hours clearing the boards of cannulas, med charts, fluid orders and patient reviews. In and of itself, tonight has been again relatively quiet... but the backlog of stuff from the evening shift has kept me moving around for quite some time.

I think I've finally broken my body clock so that now I am sleeping solidly during the day and waking up at 4pm after a good 8 hours of sleep. Today I even made it to Grand Rounds at 5pm (only cos it was the Psych case presentation by one of my consultants) and then we all went out to dinner for Dr V's birthday (Happy birthday again Dr V!) I think it's gonna be weird now going back to normal sleeping patterns in a few days time... they really shouldput people on nights for at least 2 weeks to make the most of things... 1 week is just enough time to change your body clock then have to go back again. The previous RMO (Dr M) who did nights is now sick because she hasn't been able to sleep properly since she finished nights almost a week ago... I hope that doesn't happen to me!

Get well soon Dr M!