The Day I Decided I Didnt Want to be a Doctor :: Personal Narrative Medicine Papers

The Day I Decided I Didn't Want to be a Doctor We've got one unconscious 14-year old male, struck by a train. Breathing is labored and shallow. A weak carotid pulse is 42. BP is 80 over 60. Skin is cyanotic, moist, and clammy. Pupils are dilated and non-reactive. Multiple complicated injuries: broken ribs protruding through left side, tension pnuemothorax, distended abdomen with obvious internal bleeding, fractured humerus, and pelvis. Massive injuries to head and face: lacerated nose, fractured zyogos, fractured cranium with obvious ecchymosis around eyes, hemorrhaging and leaking cerebrospinal fluid from ears and cranium. Have the trauma team ready when we arrive. I chose to do my clinical on a Friday night because I wanted a big messy injury like the ones in our class videos; but so far it's been a rather uninteresting evening. The only injuries, a fractured arm, an avulsed finger, a lacerated chin, and, of course, herds of complaining geriatrics. Just my luck. Being enthusiastically bored with these trivial injuries, I stroll up to the central call-in desk and slump down on a wooden, three-legged stool and insipidly finger the plastic ID badge clipped to my front collar. WAIT, what is this. The trauma team has assembled and is impatiently waiting by the accordion glass door. Something big must have happened. Through the glass door, brightly flashing red and white lights ignite the emergency room. An ambulance has just arrived. The glass doors fold open and a sea of blue and teal scrubs frantically attacks the wheeled stretcher. This is it; this is the big one I've been waiting for. A spark of excitement shoots down my veins. Adrenaline jump- starts my heart and my mind is immediately racing. I launch from my stool and shuffle around the swarming sea of blue and teal. A blaring voice rattles off the patient's latest diagnosis: a 14-year old struck by a train. BP is 68 over 40, pulse is 34, broken ribs, tension pnuemo, fractured cranium . . . The stretcher is wheeled to an isolated back room. A boy's tattered body lay quiet and still. Two, latex-gloved male nurses grasp each end of the spine board on which the boy is strapped and lift it onto a rectangular, white padded bed. A football-sized pool of bright red blood remains on the white padded stretcher where the boy once lay. The small body, stripped of all clothing except for a small white towel covering his genitalia, is grotesquely deformed.