Tuesday, January 20, 2004
In the dying moments of a tense, frenzied but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate a fading old woman cruelly cut down outside her house by some hit-and-run kid on his moped, I found myself privy to a scene rarely depicted on snazzy telly shows like ER and Scrubs.
It was surreal watching the ageing be-collared reverend gravely speaking her last rites, and leading the grieving family into The Lord's Prayer. As he concluded the final Ever, I glanced up in surprise as the anaesthetist by my side, still pressing in that last litre of hartmann's echoed my silent "Amen" out loud.
Listening to the Orthopedic SHO recount the story some time later in the mess, it strikes me how little the A&E SHO is noticed in these situations. "It was a while before Someone put out the crash call", "thankfully Someone finally got an arterial gas", "someone called the family in" etc. I guess it doesn't matter, but that someone was me.
There are days when I feel invisible. Today, I felt... I don't know. I can't begin to explain the jumble of emotions one goes through after fighting desperately against the odds to save someone from the massive HI she's sustained : heroic resusc. efforts successfully restoring a cardiac output (from EMD), only to have her slip away again an hour later. It's a mixed blessing - successful resuscitation would have left her with horrendous anoxic brain damage in addition to the primary injury she must have sustained (she had a constant fast flow through her nose, mouth and a tennis-ball sized haematoma / panda eye, as well as a fast leaking posterior head laceration). Yet the trauma team, disbanding in dribs and drabs looked : exhausted, disgruntled and disappointed.
Did I write earlier in this diary that I love A&E?
Well... I do.
It was surreal watching the ageing be-collared reverend gravely speaking her last rites, and leading the grieving family into The Lord's Prayer. As he concluded the final Ever, I glanced up in surprise as the anaesthetist by my side, still pressing in that last litre of hartmann's echoed my silent "Amen" out loud.
Listening to the Orthopedic SHO recount the story some time later in the mess, it strikes me how little the A&E SHO is noticed in these situations. "It was a while before Someone put out the crash call", "thankfully Someone finally got an arterial gas", "someone called the family in" etc. I guess it doesn't matter, but that someone was me.
There are days when I feel invisible. Today, I felt... I don't know. I can't begin to explain the jumble of emotions one goes through after fighting desperately against the odds to save someone from the massive HI she's sustained : heroic resusc. efforts successfully restoring a cardiac output (from EMD), only to have her slip away again an hour later. It's a mixed blessing - successful resuscitation would have left her with horrendous anoxic brain damage in addition to the primary injury she must have sustained (she had a constant fast flow through her nose, mouth and a tennis-ball sized haematoma / panda eye, as well as a fast leaking posterior head laceration). Yet the trauma team, disbanding in dribs and drabs looked : exhausted, disgruntled and disappointed.
Did I write earlier in this diary that I love A&E?
Well... I do.
