Hey people
Let's fast forward to the incident directly .
I had seen the case of anaphylactic shock where the patient came choking and after giving multiple shots of adrenaline intramuscularly the patient had survived. He was pretty comfortable after the treatment and observation.Later ,he was shifted to the other unit after stabilization .This was a midnight case for me , so after I went home and dozed off.Later received calls that there were some concerns by the primary team as to the "kind" of setting he was shifted and the arguments kind of put off my mood ( ED versus Rest of the hospital , like any other day) . All the resuscitation satisfaction I experienced had gone to trash. Arguments have this vibe to drain you out. Like any other day, I forgot about it, got over it.
Cut 2 , 4 months later:
My colleague is about 15 minutes late and I received another case . I was pretty mad at my colleague for turning up late and that I had to take a case at the end of my shift ( All those who work in EDs would understand this) .
I attend this young woman with gastroenteritis , start initial treatment, counsel the couple about the plan .After handing over the case , I was rushing home.
This is gentleman who stops me and says , doctor I wanted to talk to you ... I addressed his concerns and told him the next doctor would follow up with the case.
He stopped me again , I wanted to thank you doctor.I thought it was a generic thank you and I said ,oh! that's all right .
Then he continued... Doctor, I wanted to thank you for saving my life. I kind of scanned him, he was pretty stable and I didn't know what he was talking about. He then revealed that he had walked in choking and he reminded me of the entire incident . I never got a chance to thank you, and I was like... Man !This made my day ! The patient this time was his wife who had with heavy heart signed High risk consent.
Whether you are in the front line or in the ICU , we as healthcare workers work to save the patient. So ,that he can leave a normal life . It was not something I always craving but when it came it felt "Nice!"
Positive enforcement is required to keep yourself going when working in a setup like emergency . We see critical patients rarely realizing the effort that have been made to resuscitate them. So ,this is a little incident that I wanted to share with anybody who thought working in an emergency can be draining or not worth it. It might not be the most memorable case of your life , but you're fixing many worst days of innumerable lives! In ER we are used to the concept of immediate gratification, we don't look for validation from others.
All I want to do say is you're doing well . Emergency department thinks of what people talk about them the last because we know it for the fact that you can't make everyone happy. Save the life and leave the rest to sort by itself.
So far so much.
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