Emergency Room

Officially saved my first life tonight. Well technically it was morning. Got to run a chest tube on a guy who had been successfully resuscitated (a rare event), and then had a pneumothorax (a condition where the lung collapses as air is pushed into the space between the lung and the chest wall, resulting in respiratory distress). The doc asked if I had done any of these, I responded that I had (although only in my head, but I'd practiced it many times), so he said "I trust you, call me if you have any problems." And I was off to the races!

Now to be fair, the doc did come back in after I had started the tube in (after prepping the area, making the incision, and inserting the tube) and began the time honored tradition of yelling at you while you're trying to do something so that you REALLY have to concentrate. "Don't use that!", "Don't let that come out!", "That needle isn't going to stay!", "Who the **** taught you to do sutures?" (he taught me of course, but I wasn't going to bring that up). Etc, etc. So, sweat dripping down my nose, two medics, a respiratory therapist, two nurses, and one screaming doc looking on, I successfully inserted an 8 inch Aarow chest decompression device above the fourth rib and into the pleural space. After removing about 200 cc of free air we put on the Heimlich reverse flow device and the patient was much more comfortable. The chest X-ray showed a successfully placed chest tube and a fully expanded lung. YAHOO!!! One down, thousands to go! One of my other docs said I probably saved a guy with a pulmonary emoboli in February, but that was more the nurses doing. This one was my first solo. Feels good, hope the patient makes it, he was very very sick. The rest of the evening/morning was relatively uneventful; asthma, facial laceration, constipation (those are always fun), middle ear infections x 2, and a couple of fevers.

The doc let me go early since I'd done a good job, and he told me before I left he was proud of me. That was the second highlight of my evening. Had to put that online before I went to bed tonight. Take care all, hope I don't see you this month, at least at work! Hate seeing people I know in the ER, gives me the chills!

Love to all,

-Bartman