A crazy week…or how I love my registrar

Wow, it’s over, my first week on call. It was not a good one, all in all. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the on-call system, in my hospital I work from 9am to 9:30pm. Until 5 is just a normal day, then from 5-9 everyone else goes home and it’s just me. Which in itself is pretty scary.

It basically started badly on monday with a crazy-busy oncall, and just after I had got back from handover (where I make all my patients someone else’s responsibility for the night) I was called to see this patient who was very breathless. When I went to see him he was breathing hard and grabbing my arms yelling ‘you have to help me, I can’t breathe’ but all I had time to do was scream for some morphine and my registrar (who I’d had to call in from home earlier about another patient who had dropped her GCS from 14 to 9…freaky), crank up the oxygen to 15L and drop the bed flat before he arrested and I was yelling for the arrest call to go out. We did CPR for 45 mins but he died. It was my first arrest, it was so fast, and I was so upset, I spent like half an hour crying in the treatment room.

I talked it over with my ultra-calm registrar (I love him) who assured me I did everything right, we all did, and there was nothing we could have done differently which would have changed the outcome. Did I mention I love him?! Nothing is so scary when he’s around, he’s so calm and I get so flapped, while I’m busy freaking because someone’s BP is 80 systolic he’s like, ‘it’s fine Jo, just give some gely‘ and I’m like, oh yeah, I remember I know how to do that, why didn’t I think of that?

The week didn’t really get any better, we had another very unexpected arrest on wednesday night, though after I’d gone home, and last night was a 4-admissions-after-7pm night, which scuppers your plans to go home on time somewhat. So it’s been a bit mental really, and I’m appreciating the weekend more than I ever have before I think. I’m still in my pyjamas, it’s nearly 2pm, and my bleep is safely at the hospital where it can’t bother me.

I was discussing working life with another of the F1s last week – it’s amazing to find out that though we all look calm and in control at least most of the time, inside we are all totally out of our depth and terrified of doing something wrong and getting shouted at! It’s good to know I’m not alone.

Got a few days off next week, I’m going to Loch Lomond-shire with a friend for a couple of days – she’s been in Japan for a year, I can’t wait to see her – so that will be nice. I have to work monday first though

Hopefully I’ll blog about something less medical soon, apologies for the shop talk of late. Here’s a joke one of my seniors told this week to end on!

How many orthopaedic surgeons does it take to change a lightbulb?

…………just one – Dictation: Room dark. Refer medics.