Day 1 in emergency

Today was my first day in the emergency department (or ed, NOT er). As a student, u wait for this term right from first year, coz its cool and glamourous yet grisly and full of blood. By the time you actually get to do a term in emergency medicine, you're only thoughts are of final exams, but still, its an exciting time....

For those of you whose only exposure to the world of medicine apart from asking your local gp to fill out a sick leave form is from watching er, gideon's crossing, house, grey's anatomy and god forbid, scrubs, you will be interested to know that i DID NOT "bag" or "tube" anyone, crack open a chest, put in an umbilical line or do any of the things that ur average tv doctor does in the course of an average shift. Here's what really happens in an ed:

1. we see the end results of human stupidity- the moron award for the day has to go to one of the following-

- the woman who snorted cocaine and came in with a seizure- very, very lucky not to have a brain haemorrhage, heart attack or other nasty things.
- the woman who managed to stick a fishbone into her thumb, press it in deeper by trying to extract it with a needle, yes a sewing needle, went to the gp after 3 weeks, and then got referred to us coz her thumb was "infected".
- the genleman who grinds metal for a living, feels some irritation in his eye, and waits till the iron filing in his eye had RUSTED before he figured he needed to see a doctor.

2. we see the real impact of the obesity epidemic- no! there's no exclamation marks around obesity to imply that there some doubt about it, nor is it preceded by a "supposed" or "so-called". its real and we see it, or hear it, or not hear it to be exact. stethoscopes were designed in the 19th century before the obesity epidemic- hence they cannot cope with 10-15 cm of fat between the heart/lungs and the sound-conducting membrane.

3. of course, there's plenty of "real" medicine as well- the heart attacks, strokes, pneumonias, gallstones etc.

4. there was also the unfortunate old lady who fell over on the pavement and fractured the orbit ( thats the bony socket in the skull in which the eyeball sits). she forgot her son's phone number and got really worried as to how she was going to get home....these are the people who you really feel sorry for. a small crack in the footpath, most of us think nothing of it- but to old people, especially frail little old ladies, it is a big deal.



so there u go, my first day in emergency!!