Welcome to my Reflections from the Trenches blog. The idea of this blog is for it to be a reflection on my experiences inside the emergency department for the short time that I'll be working there this summer.
The title is a little tongue in cheek, seeing as our modern Emergency Department (ED) has little in common with the chaos that imagery from the trench conjurs. And yet, this distinction may be less apparent as an outsider looking in, with hallways overflowing with patients, paramedics and police, nurses and physicians scurrying from one room to the next, and the overhead intercom calling for "ANY MD TO POD 2, STAT!".
Chaos is certainly part of what I expected coming into this rotation, but over the course of the next few weeks I hope to share some of the experiences and reflect on just how this chaotic front line of our health care system gets the job done and serves our patients.
Day 1
You get thrown in pretty quick as a med student; One comes to anticipate the uncertainty after almost a full year of changing from one rotation to the next every 3-4 weeks. My first shift of the ED rotation was no different, and I was seeing my first patient within minutes of arriving. Not that this is a bad thing: I like seeing patients and working through their problems with them.
(Just a quick note here to say that I won't be discussing any cases with identifiers attached, and I will be altering the stories slightly to maintain annonymity of any patients I've seen).
Emergency medicine is a bit of a different beast from the other rotations I've been doing thus far. The time and space that we can spare for each patient is so small that one has to develop the ability to focus in on the presenting complaint quickly, rule out the big bad diagnoses and then come up with a plan in minutes. Not a lot of time for idle chit chat about a second-cousin-twice-removed who had an ingrown toenail once that went bad. The thing is, I feel like I'm doing each individual patient a disservice if I don't at least listen to their stories and engage with the whole person, not just their failing heart or infected lung. I suppose part of the art of medicine is being able to see and treat patients quickly while giving as much time as that patient needs to feel heard and healed. Still, when the ED is packed and I'm having to see patients out in the halls and there is a list of 35 patients to be seen, it's hard not to rush. I just hope my patients didn't feel to rushed in the care they received.
If you have any experiences to share or thoughts about anything I write, please don't hesitate!
