We get called for an OD. A young woman took all her psych meds at the same time because she was depressed. Her ex-boyfriend broke into her house and stole her cell phone. And her best female friend committed suicide recently, so she was just feeling a little overwhelmed. She had a past history of […]
Did a code at a nursing home last week. Patient, last seen allegedly an hour earlier, found apneic and pulseless in bed. She was asystole with cool, cyanotic skin. No shock advised on the first responders’ defibrillator. I intubated her, did a round of epi down the tube, then got an IV and did 25 […]
I’m wheeling a patient down the hall in nursing home (bringing them back from a dialysis trip), looking at the paintings on the wall. Most nursing homes have really crappy art work — paintings of rich people having picnics in top hats or girls in nightgowns playing with kittens — paintings that are sold in […]
Interesting online article at Slate.com about ambulance errors. Ambulances Can Be Dangerous Places Here’s two excerpts: In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published its report To Err Is Human, which estimated that up to 98,000 patients may die each year because of the mistakes of doctors, nurses, and other hospital workers. But few published studies […]
Calls run in random, almost crazy patterns that sometimes give you cluster days where you are bombarded with all similar calls. Some days its psychs, other days its carry-downs. (What really sucks is when a carry-down cluster intersects with a humongous patient cluster.) Other days it is asthmas or strokes or MVAs. I once had […]