Doctorstu

Walked in the door after 13 hours covering the general medical wards and say hi to my gf Sonya.

Sonya: "How was cover?"
Me: "Quiet, I only saw 1 patient in 13 hours and they died"

Sonya: "Fuck"

Me: "Yeah, they have end-stage interstitial pulmonary fibrosis. I got called to set up the clonazepam infusion because he was end-of-life care and he was pretty agitated. Spent 40 minutes on the phone to palliative setting up the pump. Last 30 seconds of the phone call and the nurse tapped my shoulder to tell me not to worry, he'd stop breathing".

Sonya: "Whoah, fuck"

Me: "Yeah it was pretty full on"

Sonya: "Do you know what this means?"

Me: "? what"

Sonya: "PERFECT K/D ratio!"

Sometimes terrible humor is the only thing that can cheer you up after an awful on-call. Thankfully she's the master of dark humor.

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I keep meaning to keep a journal of some of the stranger things that have happened in the emergency room this year and I figured I'd use this blog.

Case #1 - Almost dead woman with priorities

Pretty quiet morning in the high-acuity area when we get a call over the box. Pick up the radio and call all clear to proceed, EM says they have a ~50 year old woman, heroin overdose with GCS 3 who they've pumped with Naloxone but she's still struggling to not crash on them. Okay cool, see you in 5 minutes. Turn around a few times on my chair because I'm not on the resus team and wait to see what happens. She comes in virtually comatose with 2 lines already in and gets pumped with more naloxone. At this point I have a patient with DKA who needs attending so I go off for about 45 minutes.

I'm coming back from my DKA girl (who has subsequently gone to the bathroom, ripped her line out and absconded from the hospital because fuck me, right?) and I hear this ungodly screech:

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEERE'S MEEEE FUUUUUCKIN BAAAAAG!!!" and what looks like a hunched pile of rags shuffling through high-acuity.

No fucking way.

It's our heroin OD, she's up and she's PISSED she's been saved from her OD without her bag. Then here comes the kicker

"WHEN I WAKED UP IN OTHER HOSPITALS I HAD ME FUCKIN BAG!!"

10/10 priorities lady.

### Ask stu

Heroin OD a few days ago in resus.
Patient "I only took one hit"
Dr #1 "How much is a hit?"
Dr #2 "Ask someone"
Dr #1 "Who?"
Dr #2 "Ask stu"
Dr #1 "oh, yeah"
Me: ????

Dunno whether to be insulted or what.

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I decided to quit playing poker when I got into med school and, being surrounded by private school kids, never really brought it up or talked about it to anyone.

Fast forward about 6 years and I'm sitting at junior doc having dinner with other juniors and a few senior EM consultants when one of them asks me what I did before med. For some reason (and a few drinks) I was honest and told them I spent 2 years making a (very sketchy) living off poker. Cue an hour of questions.

Since then I've been cornered by two senior consultants who've asked me about my days playing poker because apparently 'card players would make the best EM docs'. Yesterday I had an informal talk with the director who more or less confirmed if I was to apply for a full time job in the ED next year I'd be a shoe-in.

Fucking poker man, opening doors everywhere.

P.s. LP nostalgia is huge, games look tight now tho, not such easy money these days =(

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