Flying Solo

Just finished up 3 relatively calm weeks in the Outpatient Clinic and now I'm onto 3 weeks of ER. Day 1 was last Monday, and quite frankly, I am exhausted. In fact, one 10 hour shift in the ER (which actually turned into a 12 hour shift) was infinitely more tiring than a 24 hour OB-Gyn call. I wish I was joking.

For a somewhat "small" ER, there is nothing small about the patient volume that comes into that place on a daily basis. It's your usual garden variety of chest pain, strokes, falls, GI issues, fevers, MVAs, GSWs, etc. Some people are obviously critical and need the immediate attention while others make me question the intelligence of mankind. And yes, I am making those assessments after just four shifts there.

What it comes down to, is this (and I am loosely improvising): if you're 25 with no significant PMH and have no other complaints except for a really bad headache for 2 hours, DO NOT show up to your local ER expecting your problem to be taken care of in a jiffy when the octagenarian in 3 keeps seizing and there's a 60 year old who has little ST mountains all over her EKG and there's a GSW on the way in. It's just not gonna happen. And then don't get all huffy with the med student/nurse/med tech/PA asking when you're gonna get some medicine. Newsflash homie, the PO pain-killer we're eventually going to give you for your headache is not something you needed to take an ambulance to the ER for. In fact, you probably could've walked down to the local pharmacy and pick it up for $5. Yeah, it's called extra strength MOTRIN.

I realize it sounds like I'm completely unempathetic, and quite frankly, I probably am getting a little bit jaded...but you obviously need to prioritize patient care in an ER and clearly, the STEMI is gonna take precedence over the cluster headache. It's just that a little bit of common sense goes A LONG WAY. Am I right or am I right?

In other news, my life is pretty meh. I'm spending my days off studying for Step 2 (gah, is it really that time of year again?) and fending off my mother's attempts to get me married. Yeah, that's happening. Well not anytime soon, but eventually. I'm not as 100% resistant to the idea as I once was, but my sole priority for the next year and a half is to do whatever it takes to make it out of med school with a residency position in hand.  But if I happen to magically cross paths with a guy that catches my eye, I'm not gonna say no either. Although lets face it, my life is not exactly the story of "guy meets girl and falls head over heels in lust." But maybe that'll change. Who knows?