Tired

[roja]

I worked all weekend. Sick. It snowed here and although it wasn't crazy busy, the people we had were pretty sick.

A friend pointed to a rather nasty post in the gas section on ED intubations.


One that would be easy to get all irked and annoyed at.


And yet, it fueled momentarily in me, a moment of extreme tiredness: this age old pissing on 'expertise' battles.

Why is it that so many residents and attendings seem to have forgotten what its all about? I know its a little corny, but in the end its really about taking care of someone who is sick. Not whose ego needs the most stroking!

Great. You want to be the best intubator? resuscitator? excellent. have at. In five years, please come back and show me that you haven't had one humbling case.


In my opinion, there isn't an outstanding MD out there who can't tell you about a case they wish they had done differently. or one where they did everything right and it still went wrong.

We had a horrid case just this weekend: A 7 year old carried in by parents for vomitting blood. The child proceeded to lose vitals in front of my residents and was tubed and coded within seconds.

All to no avail. So, yeah, the resident got the tube. The code ran right. And the kid still was dead. Strangulated hernai.

All four residents involved were in shock, many with tears. With lack luster, the intubating resident said "i got the tube but it didn't matter'.

So, to those who feel the need ot be the best or bash on every other field, I have to wonder..... in the end, does it really matter?



/rant

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[dmitrinyr]

Tough case. All you could do is try your best all the time and hope for a good result. Sometimes you could do everything right and the result is the same as if you would have done nothing. Yes, those cases suck. But you should leave that case knowing you fought the good fight and then go on and tend to the next patient and do your best to help them with their problems. Roja, you are correct, in the end of the day it is not about who is the best. It is about whether or not we helped anyone that day. While I haven't seen as many patients as you, I always try to make a point of dealing with a tough case by not dwelling on it too much and getting a patient as soon as possible so that I have another chance to help someone and forget about the previous case.

 

[pseudoknot]

Thank you for that post. I'm always disappointed to see the bashing threads. I do find that attitude a lot more common on SDN than in real life, and I've also noticed that in real life, the doctors who seem happy with their own careers are the ones that will tell you that all the other specialties are great too.

I was glad to see that the anesthesia thread turned around quite a bit after TysonCook's post.

 

[vtucci]

I wish the trash talking was just on SDN. I have heard numerous other departments knock emergency medicine.

To my senior chief's credit on my medicine rotation, he put an intern in their place for making snide remarks about the EM residents. He told the intern to remember that for every patient medicine admits, there are 10 that are disposed of by the ED and the next time he thinks the ED resident's job is so easy and not being done properly, he should spend a "tour of duty in the pit" and see if he comes out the other end without going home to cry to his mama.

 

[WallowaWanderer]

I was glad to see that the anesthesia thread turned around quite a bit after TysonCook's

Tyson's post was awesome. I hope I can learn to build bridges like that.

 

[TysonCook]

It's the power of the purple hippo

 

[roja]

It had been a long weekend.

 

[docB]

I don't know why you guys go into those lion's dens. Gas and the surg forums are just bad news. You might as well browse the Lounge. You all know my attitude:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=243423

 

[pseudoknot]

I don't know why you guys go into those lion's dens. Gas and the surg forums are just bad news. You might as well browse the Lounge. You all know my attitude:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=243423

That thread went pretty bad in the end...