ER doc steps outside after losing a 19 y/o patient

[qwerty89]

So
apparently this is blowing up on reddit and the internet:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2zk62y/an_er_doctor_steps_outside_after_losing_a_19year/

http://q13fox.com/2015/03/19/photog...s-outside-after-losing-a-19-year-old-patient/

Its nice to finally have some good press that shows the public what physicians have to deal with.

Thats a nice pick-me-up prior to Match Day.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

I remember having a nice cry in an ambulance bay once. The young ones are always the toughest, especially after you meet their family.

 

[Birdstrike]

Yeah...I know. I've been there many times. I've written about a few. Most of you have read them. But yeah, it's hard, real hard. Here's one that stuck with me:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/those-shoes.950401/


The dichotomy of being brought to our knees while trying so hard to save lives yet at times failing, but at the same time being a common target for frivolous and malicious over the same work is something I still have not quite been able to fully reconcile. Also, the fact that such a picture of a doctor actually being human would be considered unusual enough to even go viral says a lot, in and of itself. After all, is the world really ready, willing or able to think of us as human?

 

[Spinach Dip]

Also, the fact that such a picture of a doctor actually being human would even go viral says a lot in and of itself. After all, is the world really ready, willing or able to think of us as human?

The more prevailing notion among people* is that doctors consider themselves demi-gods who spend the majority of their days counting their money and occasionally ordering unnecessary tests. So when one shows a scrap of humanity, everyone is surprised because it contradicts all their preconceived notions.




* particularly those outside of the healthcare field.

 

[Birdstrike]

The more prevailing notion among people* is that doctors consider themselves demi-gods who spend the majority of their days counting their money and occasionally ordering unnecessary tests. So when one shows a scrap of humanity, everyone is surprised because it contradicts all their preconceived notions.




* particularly those outside of the healthcare field.

Yes. I also think the public doesn't want to see their doctors as "human." They want one who's near "God-like" or at least great enough at what he does to at least think he is such. They want to think of us that way, yet resent us for any resemblance at the same time. They also hold us to a similar standard and consider us to have failed if we don't perform the medical near-miracles they assume to be routine.

 

[deleted547339]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/those-shoes.950401/

Anyone on this forum that hasn't read this should.

 

[Birdstrike]

This also reminds me of the "Hate It When They Come In Talking and Die" thread, where dchristismi posted about one of these moments:

http://www.forums.studentdoctor.net...it-when-they-come-in-talking-and-die.1116435/

 

[BAM!]

...Also, the fact that such a picture of a doctor actually being human would be considered unusual enough to even go viral says a lot, in and of itself. After all, is the world really ready, willing or able to think of us as human?

I know how you feel, but I think this photo went viral more-so because of its raw depiction of human emotion.

I read your "shoe-story" post and relate completely. After my son was born, any time a peds trauma or code of the same age would be called out overhead, my nerves would jump. If I wasn't working in the trauma bay, I'd run over just to make sure it wasn't my child. I never had the "shoe" experience but had a similar "same haircut/skin tone" experience. I've also visualized my son's face in pediatric burn patients on numerous occasions.

I think this is pretty common, as I have spoken with a few other doctors who have had similar experiences.

 

[Vandalia]

It is the great paradox of medicine. One medical author described this well in a conversation between two of his protagonists, both neurosurgeons. The author has called his former chief resident after a bad complication. His response:

"You have to care about your patients, but not too much. It's unethical to operate on our wives. Why? Because we'd be too likely to choke, to get nervous and f'up if its our own family on the chopping block. The very fact that medical ethics forbids treating your immediate family is proof that we shouldn't get so involved with a patient that we are made nervous by the possibility of failure. Patients want us to care about them, but they want us to perform with the nerveless demeanor of someone slicing bologna in a deli at the same time. It's one of those unexplained paradoxes we just accept - you know, like the Flinstone Christmas Special. How do people from a million B.C. celebrate Christmas? Enough B.S. Clip the aneurysm and take what happens.

When the Air Hits Your Brain, Frank Vertosick, M.D.

 

[Birdstrike]

It is the great paradox of medicine. One medical author described this well in a conversation between two of his protagonists, both neurosurgeons. The author has called his former chief resident after a bad complication. His response:



When the Air Hits Your Brain, Frank Vertosick, M.D.

Yes. It's similar to a pilot putting the thought of crashing out of his mind enough to allow him to fly, but without ignore the possibility so much as to become sloppy or dangerous to himself and passengers. It's like anything else in life; it's about finding the sweet spot of appropriate balance and moderation.

 

[Arcan57]

I'm glad someone started this thread. I'd seen numerous reposts of the image on Facebook and some of the stories in the comment section were truly heart-wrenching. I had a code recently where it was a witnessed arrest with short scene time in a middle-aged woman. She obviously had cancer but I really thought I had a chance at getting her back but just couldn't get anything resembling a perfusing rhythm. It's unlikely she's got any kind of long-term survival but I get this idea in my head that at least she can have a chance to talk with her husband again. Despite everything we do, she stays dead. I tell husband in the family room (he had briefly come back during the code and couldn't take watching it) that she's dead. I lead him back to the resuscitation room and he runs, wraps her in a huge hug, and just kinda of sobs out "I love you so much". I burst out sobbing again later trying to tell my wife about it and it still hurts to think about. Anyway, thanks for listening.

 

[Birdstrike]

I'm glad someone started this thread. I'd seen numerous reposts of the image on Facebook and some of the stories in the comment section were truly heart-wrenching. I had a code recently where it was a witnessed arrest with short scene time in a middle-aged woman. She obviously had cancer but I really thought I had a chance at getting her back but just couldn't get anything resembling a perfusing rhythm. It's unlikely she's got any kind of long-term survival but I get this idea in my head that at least she can have a chance to talk with her husband again. Despite everything we do, she stays dead. I tell husband in the family room (he had briefly come back during the code and couldn't take watching it) that she's dead. I lead him back to the resuscitation room and he runs, wraps her in a huge hug, and just kinda of sobs out "I love you so much". I burst out sobbing again later trying to tell my wife about it and it still hurts to think about. Anyway, thanks for listening.

It can be brutal, man. It really can. Thanks for tryin'.

 

[dchristismi]

I had an even worse talk-and-die the other week... and it really got to me... Mostly because I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I knew that I didn't have any good options. So I picked what I thought was the least of the worst, and rolled the dice. And he still died. And although the patient was technically an adult, due to congenital issues (Down Syndrome, among others), in my mind and his parents minds, he was an 8 year old kid. And man, that one hurt.

 

[RTC19]

What a powerful photo. God bless you guys for what you do.

 

[tkim]

Have to confess. That's a picture of me outside my ED, I had just lost one of my contact lenses and I was looking for it.

 

[sum dude]

I had a shift a year ago at our fancy-schmancy suburban campus where back to back days I coded two 1-month old newborns, both brought in gray, cold, and lifeless. 5 minutes after talking to their devastated families, it's time to move on, b/c the vomiter in room 2 or belly pain in room 5 thinks his/her emergency is the most important thing in his/her world. It's the reality, and no one outside a few select fields will ever understand it--do your 30 second existential cry/scream, like this doc, then enough B.S...clip the aneurysm and get back to work.

 

[Doctor Bob]

Have to confess. That's a picture of me outside my ED, I had just lost one of my contact lenses and I was looking for it.

Haha. Yes! That was my first thought when I saw this pic. "Oh he just dropped a contact"

But seriously.
I think there's something problematic about how viral this picture has gone. While I get that people are holding it up to say "look, doctors have feelings also", that says to me that a lot of the public doesn't view us that way in general. And that's bad. If someone needs a picture of a doctor having "a moment" to realize that we care, then maybe there's something wrong with the viewer.

 

[deleted480308]

Haha. Yes! That was my first thought when I saw this pic. "Oh he just dropped a contact"

But seriously.
I think there's something problematic about how viral this picture has gone. While I get that people are holding it up to say "look, doctors have feelings also", that says to me that a lot of the public doesn't view us that way in general. And that's bad. If someone needs a picture of a doctor having "a moment" to realize that we care, then maybe there's something wrong with the viewer.

a nurse would cry twice as hard because they put the care in healthcare....(eyeroll)

 

[CajunMedic]

I reposted it myself with a Dr. Cox quote from Scrubs about going back to work after telling the family.

It made me think of the 2 times I can recall, out of 16 years in EMS that I had cried. My very 1st patient in clinicals had been an 40ish female that seized and coded. The physician pronounced, walked out of the room, up to the family and said: "we did everything we could, she's dead, have you considered harvesting her organs?" Family lost it, I ducked out and behind the unit and lost it myself.

Almost 10 years later, I delivered a 20 week preemie in the field. Managed to get mom and baby to the hospital alive. Only time I had ever seen that particular ED Physician angry or even raise his voice. (No ET tube or even laryngoscope blade small enough) I got in the back of the truck, killed the lights, called my wife and cried my eyes out for a good while.

Like everyone else, I had to learn how to square my shoulders, grab my post-crappy call Dr. Pepper and saddle back up for the next one.

I know it's going to get tougher soon, when I'm the one going out to tell the family what happened, or making the decision to stop. Hope I can keep some shred of humanity.

Thanks for listening.