BIG week for the intern

I am doing my ICU rotation, and as a surgery bound intern I have jumped at every opportunity to put in a central line or any other procedure that is needed, so as a result I have done 7 lines this week. In addition, I was on surgery call for the weekend and had the fun experience of caring for a patient who was panic stricken by the sight of her own blood shooting across the room from her leg after a central line was pulled and the nurses were unable to stop the bleeding. As all call weekends are destined to go, I was on my way out the door when the pager "beep" goes off requesting I come see this patient, which then inevitably led to more pages and me spending an extra 6 hours in the hospital. I am learning that part of being a physician is being the calm in a storm. It is very therapeutic for a patient to see that the doctor is calm and collected in the face of what appears to be dire straits to the patient. I guess my calming presence was helpful, because as I held pressure over the bleeding site, the patient went on to tell me her rather horrific life story. Basically a "Jerry Springer" type life. Good times. ;o)

In other news... I bought two trees last week, but have yet to plant them in my yard, but when I do I will take their picture (of course) and post it on the blog :o)

Later-