Last Saturday was two weekends in a row I took 24 hour call on Saturday. The first one was rough, this one, the on call team for the day... we made records.
It started at 7am with a ruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm which took my chief to the OR emergently leaving all 25 patients on my list to me.
Thankfully, for the next three hours my senior took care of all incoming on call work knowing that I had a lot to handle rounding with each Attending, getting plans in place and discharges taken care of. But three hours was all she could afford. By 10am our first three traumas were rolling through the trauma bay doors, and she could no longer keep it from me. From then on we attacked the constant onslaught together.
It never stopped, and we just kept going with it. It wasn't until Sunday...when the torch had finally been passed off, and looking retrospectively across the settling dust that I realized what we had just survived. Over a 24 hour period we had gotten 15 traumas and 20+ consults on top. (To put in perspective, by 6 traumas and 8-9 consults its considered a busy call). We had patient's die... too many die. Did my first open cardiac massage. Put a man's leg back together after he'd drunkenly managed to self-eject himself from his vehicle, half mangling his calf in the process. More than one opportunity to put in emergent lines and chest tubes.
I am so thankful for the team I was with that day. They were good examples for me. Great examples of how to prioritize and organize. And remaining positive was so easy with them. Business aside, we were where we wanted to be, doing what we wanted to be doing.
After one particular messy trauma, our trauma attending turned to my senior and commented, "Are you surgeon?! You look like butcher!!" as she had blood stained the entire front of her scrubs.
Or during cardiac massage my hands started cramping so I passed off to my senior to take over and in return got a sarcastic quip from my attending poking fun about being a girl and needing a break.
I don't know how many more similar calls I'm bound to have over the next five years, but I hope I'm with an equally hard-working, dedicated and amazing team as I had this past call.
Much Love.
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