I'm still here. I think.
Work has been mostly ok.
Everything else has been a little rough.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Bathos
[bey-thos, -thaws, -thohs]–noun, 1.) a ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.
Throughout my internship I was often given the most difficult patients on the unit. And as I blossomed from a fragile seedling root-bound in a plastic sprouting tray to a plant hardy enough for transplant, my preceptors stepped further and further back, allowing me to manage my patients, my way, developing my practice. At the end I was virtually on my own as my preceptors often were called to fulfill other functions on the unit.
And I did well. I managed some truly tough assignments, and my patients were the better for my care. I admitted countless CABG's. And those turned into redo CABG's, or extremely sick CABG's. And then it was IABPs, and LVADs, and impellas, culminating with admitting heart transplants and double lung transplants. On my own.
My unit and my internship experience turned out to be everything it was advertised to be. I was excited when I came off orientation to be on my own, ready to save the world. Or at least whatever train-wreck heart surgery came out of the OR suite that day.
Our unit is very busy right now, and higher acuity patients than usual. Right now we have 2 double lungs, 2 heart transplants, 2 LVADs, and an impella. One of the heart transplants went on ECMO yesterday, and there is another heart transplant, and lung transplant scheduled for today. This is on top of the run of the mill CABGs. 21 beds, 21 patients.
With all this glorious acuity, for the past 3 nights I've been assigned...
**drumroll please**
A blind VAT with cancer, on the unit for 33 days because he has a creatinine of 7.5 while making copious urine, pneumonia that won't heal, and he can't hold his sats above 85% without a venti and nasal cannula.
And a recent stroke victim who had an AVR and came down with a serious case of pump-head. He's so unpleasantly confused he's pulled nearly every tube and line possible, while restrained. He's been on the unit for almost 3 weeks now.
And for the 3 weeks I've been off orientation? Exactly the same kind of patients, night after night.
Grind your soul into the asphalt slightly-too-sick-for-the-floor confused med-surg patients. EXACTLY the kind of patients I busted my ass to get hired into a high acuity unit to AVOID.
I get that I'm new. I do. I really, really do.
But come ON.
Throughout my internship I was often given the most difficult patients on the unit. And as I blossomed from a fragile seedling root-bound in a plastic sprouting tray to a plant hardy enough for transplant, my preceptors stepped further and further back, allowing me to manage my patients, my way, developing my practice. At the end I was virtually on my own as my preceptors often were called to fulfill other functions on the unit.
And I did well. I managed some truly tough assignments, and my patients were the better for my care. I admitted countless CABG's. And those turned into redo CABG's, or extremely sick CABG's. And then it was IABPs, and LVADs, and impellas, culminating with admitting heart transplants and double lung transplants. On my own.
My unit and my internship experience turned out to be everything it was advertised to be. I was excited when I came off orientation to be on my own, ready to save the world. Or at least whatever train-wreck heart surgery came out of the OR suite that day.
Our unit is very busy right now, and higher acuity patients than usual. Right now we have 2 double lungs, 2 heart transplants, 2 LVADs, and an impella. One of the heart transplants went on ECMO yesterday, and there is another heart transplant, and lung transplant scheduled for today. This is on top of the run of the mill CABGs. 21 beds, 21 patients.
With all this glorious acuity, for the past 3 nights I've been assigned...
**drumroll please**
A blind VAT with cancer, on the unit for 33 days because he has a creatinine of 7.5 while making copious urine, pneumonia that won't heal, and he can't hold his sats above 85% without a venti and nasal cannula.
And a recent stroke victim who had an AVR and came down with a serious case of pump-head. He's so unpleasantly confused he's pulled nearly every tube and line possible, while restrained. He's been on the unit for almost 3 weeks now.
And for the 3 weeks I've been off orientation? Exactly the same kind of patients, night after night.
Grind your soul into the asphalt slightly-too-sick-for-the-floor confused med-surg patients. EXACTLY the kind of patients I busted my ass to get hired into a high acuity unit to AVOID.
I get that I'm new. I do. I really, really do.
But come ON.
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