Estoy en casa.

Pressing on for another week on the transplant/hepatobiliary service. It’s been raining livers. Which is a bit odd, usually its kidneys coming down. But in the midst of a kidney drought, we find ourselves drowning in livers. Which is good, that many more patients getting better!

Set a new personal record with a nigh 48hr shift. Went into the hospital 1:00 am Monday morning and finally left again at 11:00pm Tuesday night. It wasn’t planned like that, but Sunday a liver became available. My rotator went to get it and I went in to receive it and put it in our patient. I was scheduled to be on call then Monday, and thankfully I was able to get a quick nap overnight. Because then the next day I stayed post call to take out part of a liver during which we found out that another of our patients was allocated a new liver. So we finished up and tucked away our patient with just enough time to catch the transport for the procurement. Thankfully we traded off, I went for procurement this time and one of the rotators took care of the recipient.

Concerning interns: After my nigh 48hr shift, I get woken up this morning by a text from my intern that one of our patients has a high potassium level and he wants to give a specific medication. First off, it was the wrong med to give so I deny that immediately. But as for the potassium level, it made no sense why the patient would have such a high level. So I asked the intern how the patient was and what did her EKG show? To which he responded, he had not seen the patient, had just gotten the call from the lab and wanted to let me know. I gave him a plan, and got myself into the hospital. He needed a little... discussion, one which needed to be in person. We understand interns are trying to figure out how to transition from mere reporters of information to one who gathers information, analyzes that information and then acts on that information. They aren’t going to get it right the first time, and that’s okay, its why there’s an internship. But, they need to at least attempt, and I’d had this conversation with my intern before. Take this morning for example. I pointed out to him that the lab had called him with a number, a number which he immediately then simply passed on to me. In effect he was no better than a lab reporter to me.

Much Love.