Sauntered in at 0730 with the intention of meeting fellowship director, who gives a lie to the old-dogs-new-tricks mantra, for a little chat about breast disease in pregnancy.  Nurses are buzzing - seems there's a patient going downhill on high-risk side.  Looks like my 0800 chat is going to become an 0800 section, if I let it, and I plan to.
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That's how the world becomes better, Rabbi says, nodding to a nurse. To look at a person and see a human being. Thank you for thinking of us.Peds call tonight; on my way into the hospital to admit S who is a doll of a three-year-old girl with sickle cell anemia and a hemoglobin one-third of normal I pass one of the nurses. "Multiple trauma ( Read more... )

Night float. I got called on a patient, one of my cross-covers that I know well after spending an hour trying to establish code status and avoid intubation the other night. Nice guy, has AIDS, has a nasty probably-pneumocystis pneumonia. Nurse calls me to tell me he's hallucinating. Seeing angels or beasts or some such, and he's overcome by the ( Read more... )

Finish that quotation, and tell me who it's attributed to :)

Doing well, I suppose.  Working long hours on Medicine again.  I'm taking a break to digest dinner after spending a hard few hours dodging bullets in the ER.  
The most important part of the History and Physical on Staff Medicine is "Who is your primary doctor?"  If they say nobody, and ( Read more... )

It always amazes me that I can walk into someone's room, calmly discuss the death sentence they've just been handed, and then go back to sleep. It's an adaptive thing. It took me ten minutes to work up the nerve to go in there in the first place, but once the deed is done, I can drift off easily.
It is never good when your arm wakes you up by ( Read more... )

My mind, is empty. I am looking at my calendar view and realizing that I have updated 6 times in the last 3 months. I wonder if some of you even remember who I am...I got the call at 0500 from the ER on a peds night where I had finally stumbled into bed at 0-dark-hundred. It was one of my lightest peds call nights all month - only ten children, ( Read more... )

I barely slept at all last night on call. I am exhausted and I think I have RSV; I am sick. But my heart is breaking.There is a sixteen year old boy who just transferred today to another hospital for further therapy and rehab. Unrestrained passenger, T-boned. Came in via air medical transport. On good days he will move to look in your ( Read more... )

Two patients this morning - one who's finally gotten her EP studies and is now going home, the other in rehab. Done rounding by 08:20. Got called by the cardiologist and told to come discharge his patient; then paged from the birthing unit. You have a card. One of my patients - one of those many wonderful deliveries that I don't tell you about ( Read more... )

First note: Did exceptionally well on the In-training exam. Have set my sights on doing even better next year. I feel good.

Some of you, O Best Beloved, have either delivered a child or been present at the delivery. If you have, then you are likely familiar with the electronic fetal monitoring equipment. In this hospital, we put two belts on ( Read more... )

Slept almost 14 hours last night. It is a day off. I finished charts and did H&P dictations 72 hours overdue.I have recovered something of my old strength, but not enough yet, O Best Beloved. The memories, I think, were never clear. I fall asleep on the dictaphone at 0300 when it has been a steady stream of admissions - seven in a night, one to ( Read more... )