Deja Vu

Clinical Observation: Day 2

I woke up this morning around 5am, showered because I would not be able to wake up otherwise, and ate a good breakfast since I knew I was going to be at the hospital shadowing. You learn a thing or two about eating before shadowing after you have an experience of passing out. Today I shadowed Pod B in the ER. I got to see some really cool things. Dr. Keyes was so good to me, explained everything she was going through, and also provided me with advice. During my time of shadowing, I was able to see some trauma, patients that tend to come in on the regular, some serious cases and also some not-so serious cases.

Trauma rolled in. Dr. Keyes said "Samantha, trauma is coming in if you want to go observe." I took that opportunity and ran with it... literally I had to run to Pod A. It was an elderly lady who had fallen down a flight of stairs outside. So when she hit the ground, she hit concrete. I watched as the doctors rushed to undress her in order to find wounded areas. I watched as they yelled above her face "MAAM! MAAM! Can you hear me?" My heart started racing. She was not responding back. Then her eyes open and I sign quietly in relief. They cleaned the blood that was dripping from her face all the way to her toes and rushed her to an OR. I was then dismissed from the scene and those ten minutes of my life felt like an hour. It also felt like I was on an action-packed episode of Grey's Anatomy. It was AWESOME.

The resident, Dr. Michael. allowed me to shadow him while he got a patient. His patient was a pale yellow color from head to toe , had his stomach filled with liquid, had swollen ankles, and was weak. He reminded me of someone, my uncle who was also my godfather. This patient underwent liver disease because of alcohol. My uncle, Basil, recently passed away five months ago from liver disease and could no longer battle his fight against addiction. He drank his whole life, even up until the moment before he went into the hospital on his last living day. Seeing this patient gave me deja vu. I wanted the best outcome for him as I saw his mom hold his hand and cry. I just wanted him to fight his battle.