"Meth is Bad"

What a morning… I had a rough night yesterday and accidentally fell asleep without charging my phone. Can you guess what happened? Yep, my phone died and therefore I missed my alarm. Luckily, Rhida, JoeJoe, Lydia, and I planned that we would carpool since we all were assigned to the Emergency Department (ED) today. At 6:35am they banged on my door and woke me up that way (ahaha). I am so grateful for them because I really didn’t want to miss out on this rotation. I told them I would go on my own so they don’t wait on me even longer, got ready in 10 minutes, and made it to the ED. I actually ended up early and waited for the physicians to show up.

I was assigned to B Pod which apparently isn’t anything specific as to what type of patients are seen. I introduced myself to Dr. Philip who had the overnight shift (11pm-7am) and it was to my surprise that he still had to go teach residency after his shift. His plans for the morning was to go sleep for an hour in his office, have breakfast, and then teach at 11am. Wild. I can’t imagine how tired he must be. He waited for Dr. Bitner to show up so he can hand over the patients to him. Dr. Bitner is the department’s chair so I was really excited to shadow him. The first patient we saw was a 32 year old male who was experiencing abdominal pain, he smokes cigarettes and is homeless. The next patient was a 48 year old female (who looked well over 70) with chest pain. She takes meth and has heart arrhythmia, has had two heart attacks and a stroke. The patient after was one who was reported by his girlfriend for attempting to overdose. The next patient was getting tested for STD and the one after that was another meth addict. I quickly learned two things: “meth is bad” and the ED is not for me.

When the doctor talked to patients, he moved at the speed of light. Sometimes cutting the patient off, he repeated the question if he noticed that his questions weren’t being answered. I also really don’t like how long patients have to wait to be seen, from being in the waiting room for hours to waiting to see the doctor to then wait to be dispatched. I was wondering why all the patients were so sleepy and then realized that when they come in at 11pm and then get seen at 8am the morning after, they get pretty tired. Nothing about that is urgent. When trying to do one thing, there is also screaming from another room, and a nurse asking you to look at someone, and the patient you are talking to is asking to eat, all going on at once. I was able to handle that at Peds, but for some reason hearing an adult screaming or groaning when you touch them, is something I wasn’t able to see.

For lunch, I drove to the apartment to have lunch and rest on the couch before going back. An hour later, most patients that were there as early as 7AM, were still at the ED when I got back. It was so sad to see homeless patients because I know that when they get dispatched, they were going back to nowhere. They would go from a hospital bed to the side of the road somewhere. When I came in there were a few patients that were sitting outside of the hospital's doors because they didn’t have anywhere to be. This reminds me of a story my dad told me before. As he was working for Lyft, he picked up a person from Memorial after his surgery and when he drove to the destination that the passenger requested, it was a road under a bridge in the middle of nowhere. This broke my dad’s heart and he hasn’t been able to work for Lyft since.

Somehow, the ED is slow and fast paced simultaneously. When seeing patients, it is extremely speedy, asking questions, doing checkups, and operating procedures. When coming back to chart, that seems like a process that takes FOREVER. Also waiting for lab work to be done or for a social work consultant, etc, it takes hours for orders to be fully completed.

I learned so much from this rotation but I also learned that the emergency department is not for me :(

Can’t wait for tomorrow!!

telling on Shelby for being a good roommate