My goal to avoid trouble this year was to avoid being the first one at a code. That goal had a short life.
Once again I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If only I had left the floor after signing out to the night intern, I wouldn't have been the only doctor around when a family practice patient started to code.
Big fat UH-OH.
An extremely panicked nurse came sprinting out of the patient's room and so an extremely panicked me went sprinting in. The patient was gasping for air and there was no one else around. So after being in there alone for a good minute or so calming the patient and trying to keep her breathing, all the docs on call came rushing in. And the patient lived.
I am certain that during the process of keeping that patient breathing - I myself may have been coding. I may also have stopped breathing and most definitely almost threw up everything I have ever eaten afterwards.
There's a book called the House of God that details the life of a medical intern in the 70s; in it there are 13 rules for being a good intern, this one is relevant here: "At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse."
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