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This is going to be a post that is more than anything else meant to be therapeutic for me, but also maybe to spark a conversation that isn’t discussed all that often amongst physicians especially us rugged and tough ER docs!!
Was working the overnight shift last night, and it was actually quite an enjoyable overnight shift... you know the ones where it’s pretty busy early on but towards around 4:00 AM starts really getting nice and slow to the point where you can almost start finishing up all your notes. The next thing you know, I hear screaming running down from the main entrance of the ER, I see a mom and dad holding a baby carriage crying hysterically along with the triage nurse and tech running alongside. Of course I immediately got that “oh ****” feeling, as if is this about to be my worst nightmare coming to fruition. The nurse threw the carriage on the open stretcher and what I see in front of me was a three-month-old baby not moving, not breathing with no obvious signs of life. Mom is hysterically crying screaming for help screaming for me to do something. She basically tells me that she fell asleep trying to feed her and she woke up a half an hour later with her baby laying motionless next to her in the bed.
Reflexes obviously kicked in and started immediately doing pals, Whipped out broslow tape, whipped out the IO gun, whipped out the pediatric cart for airway and resuscitation and pads and just went to work. Resuscitated and coded this little baby for about one hour. Talk about trying to fight back the urge from someone cutting the onions. Emotions are amazing, But not when you’re trying to remain clearheaded and focused, which doesn’t help when you hear the mom and dad crying hysterically outside the room the entire time. Pretty much threw everything including the kitchen sink at the wall to see if there is any way to bring this little one back from the fate that’s obviously occurring right in front of me. It’s like you just don’t want to stop especially when they are just so little and innocent. Calling that code has definitely been a pit in my stomach since I left shift, clearly knowing that there was nothing else that could’ve been done.
I’ll be honest though it’s nice to feel emotions in this job again, granted it was a very unfortunate outcome that created this emotion, but I feel like I’ve been in a rut of just being another cog in the wheel lately... in a weird way this case kind of reminded me why I love medicine and especially emergency medicine at that. No self doubts or regrets about the case, But there are always going to be some cases that you feel like you’ll have in your mind 15-20 years down the road, the good ones and the sad ones. Anyways hope everyone’s doing well staying safe staying strong and positive, and keep fighting the good fight!!!
Was working the overnight shift last night, and it was actually quite an enjoyable overnight shift... you know the ones where it’s pretty busy early on but towards around 4:00 AM starts really getting nice and slow to the point where you can almost start finishing up all your notes. The next thing you know, I hear screaming running down from the main entrance of the ER, I see a mom and dad holding a baby carriage crying hysterically along with the triage nurse and tech running alongside. Of course I immediately got that “oh ****” feeling, as if is this about to be my worst nightmare coming to fruition. The nurse threw the carriage on the open stretcher and what I see in front of me was a three-month-old baby not moving, not breathing with no obvious signs of life. Mom is hysterically crying screaming for help screaming for me to do something. She basically tells me that she fell asleep trying to feed her and she woke up a half an hour later with her baby laying motionless next to her in the bed.
Reflexes obviously kicked in and started immediately doing pals, Whipped out broslow tape, whipped out the IO gun, whipped out the pediatric cart for airway and resuscitation and pads and just went to work. Resuscitated and coded this little baby for about one hour. Talk about trying to fight back the urge from someone cutting the onions. Emotions are amazing, But not when you’re trying to remain clearheaded and focused, which doesn’t help when you hear the mom and dad crying hysterically outside the room the entire time. Pretty much threw everything including the kitchen sink at the wall to see if there is any way to bring this little one back from the fate that’s obviously occurring right in front of me. It’s like you just don’t want to stop especially when they are just so little and innocent. Calling that code has definitely been a pit in my stomach since I left shift, clearly knowing that there was nothing else that could’ve been done.
I’ll be honest though it’s nice to feel emotions in this job again, granted it was a very unfortunate outcome that created this emotion, but I feel like I’ve been in a rut of just being another cog in the wheel lately... in a weird way this case kind of reminded me why I love medicine and especially emergency medicine at that. No self doubts or regrets about the case, But there are always going to be some cases that you feel like you’ll have in your mind 15-20 years down the road, the good ones and the sad ones. Anyways hope everyone’s doing well staying safe staying strong and positive, and keep fighting the good fight!!!
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