ER week 2

This week I'm working the 6pm-6am shift. Tonight is my 3rd night in a row, and then I have a 3 day break!!! The nights are better than I thought they would be. I've been going to bed around 7am and getting up around 2pm. That gives me a few hours to lounge around and get stuff done before going back at 5:30p. Nights in the ER are pretty variable. The first night was really busy and last night was the exact opposite. I had one patient from 3am-6am. Last night I got to suture!! I was so excited. One of the other medical students had actually picked up the chart but he had already sutured before so he let me take it. My patient was a 12yo boy who told me he "cut himself while playing with a knife." Why this boy is playing with knives is a whole other issue but he had a 2cm laceration over the joint of his pinky finger. I got to do a digital block, where you inject lidocaine into the nerves on both sides of the finger in order to anesthesize the whole finger and then I put in 5 stiches. I took me a while but I think they looked pretty good. The kid was really tough and after I was all done he said, "How many times have you done this before." First rule of being a student - you only admit that it was your first time AFTER you are done.

The ER is going better than my first post. The hardest part about this rotation is the adapting to each attending that you are working with. Medicine is so far from black and white and the treatments for some conditions vary depending on the situation. So I could suggest the same treatment for two patients with the same condition to two different attendings and their responses would be completely opposite. You have to learn quickly who likes this particular cocktail for migraine headaches vs. another and who likes one antibiotic for urinary tract infections vs. another because they are both appropriate treatments.

I'm off for day 3. Will post more soon!