Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Man In White
The extent to which the man in white coat pushed us inferior intesivists was just phenomenal.
He walked into the unit with his nose high up, with an Indian SHO tagging along answering to all his commands. Ordering things around, silenced all the ITU nurses, not even a hiss of air movement should reach his auditory.
Dr.McN the consultant, Koala, Deepa and I, were all standing around the bed with this whale sized lady lumped on the machine counting the minutes to which she would be pronounced dead. I was dying to handover and just leave! My eyes were not winning against the gravity. Plus there’s only so much one can do for somebody who is insisting on dying.
Being on call the night, me and my hair looked like we had a fight, my skin and my bluescrubs were equally crumpled, all having minds of their own by handover. Not another second I wished for people to see me in that state. Actually I’d marry anyone who thinks it’s a turn on.
I started glazing over the night events, how I’ve given all the bicarbonate we could possibly give, haemofilter her, given her the FFP, cryoprecipitate, and even glucose because she keeps dipping. I spilled the order of events to the team with mild expressive dysphasia and random nystagmus with intermittent surge of widening of the eyes to pick up momentum. Detailing everything and just punctuated in the end with what I thought was a bloody good hypothesis. Basically we’ve given this lady the best chance there was. The team nodded agreeingly. We should stop all treatment, let her go.
Honestly, we have a dead body already and this man in the white coat, (with no disrespect intended), just walked in like an angel of resurrection . What is he really trying to do? Going through the Chrohn’s history? For what? He thinks he’s God?
The man in white listened half heartedly to my tales of the night, interrupted rudely before beckoning us towards him,
Move over here please, so we can all have one history and one plan, not confusing bits and pieces, he retorted.
Arkhhh…how rude doc! I know you’ve got the most white hair, but didn’t you just walk in? What’s wrong with greeting us good morning and joining in? I know my slurred speech is less than flattering but don’t you think I’d be the best person to tell you what happened since I’ve been up all night cheating death?? Hers that is.
I could just see Dr, McN’s earlobes changing to the colour of the flower prints on the curtain round the beds. Fushcia? He instructed me to carry on and just as I started with the numbers, the man in the white again interrupted.
He commanded the Indian SHO instead, to pedantically go over the history and I could just see Dr.McN struggling to keep his mouth firmly shut. I was stopped in mid sentence and only just then realized my mouth was still opened. Any moment I thought he was going to blurt something which will just start a 3rd world war.
If you could find an arrogant, pedantic full of himself physician in this day and age, show me and I will show you worse. He is the pinnacle.
What a morning, and all I wanted to do was to crash in my bed.
All this walk over to me, no you walk over to me business, what was that all about? Bad case of egos banging into each other on a one way street? Arkhhh…sort your man ego out arkhhhhhhhh arkhhhhhhhhhh zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..on call again tomorrow.
He walked into the unit with his nose high up, with an Indian SHO tagging along answering to all his commands. Ordering things around, silenced all the ITU nurses, not even a hiss of air movement should reach his auditory.
Dr.McN the consultant, Koala, Deepa and I, were all standing around the bed with this whale sized lady lumped on the machine counting the minutes to which she would be pronounced dead. I was dying to handover and just leave! My eyes were not winning against the gravity. Plus there’s only so much one can do for somebody who is insisting on dying.
Being on call the night, me and my hair looked like we had a fight, my skin and my bluescrubs were equally crumpled, all having minds of their own by handover. Not another second I wished for people to see me in that state. Actually I’d marry anyone who thinks it’s a turn on.
I started glazing over the night events, how I’ve given all the bicarbonate we could possibly give, haemofilter her, given her the FFP, cryoprecipitate, and even glucose because she keeps dipping. I spilled the order of events to the team with mild expressive dysphasia and random nystagmus with intermittent surge of widening of the eyes to pick up momentum. Detailing everything and just punctuated in the end with what I thought was a bloody good hypothesis. Basically we’ve given this lady the best chance there was. The team nodded agreeingly. We should stop all treatment, let her go.
Honestly, we have a dead body already and this man in the white coat, (with no disrespect intended), just walked in like an angel of resurrection . What is he really trying to do? Going through the Chrohn’s history? For what? He thinks he’s God?
The man in white listened half heartedly to my tales of the night, interrupted rudely before beckoning us towards him,
Move over here please, so we can all have one history and one plan, not confusing bits and pieces, he retorted.
Arkhhh…how rude doc! I know you’ve got the most white hair, but didn’t you just walk in? What’s wrong with greeting us good morning and joining in? I know my slurred speech is less than flattering but don’t you think I’d be the best person to tell you what happened since I’ve been up all night cheating death?? Hers that is.
I could just see Dr, McN’s earlobes changing to the colour of the flower prints on the curtain round the beds. Fushcia? He instructed me to carry on and just as I started with the numbers, the man in the white again interrupted.
He commanded the Indian SHO instead, to pedantically go over the history and I could just see Dr.McN struggling to keep his mouth firmly shut. I was stopped in mid sentence and only just then realized my mouth was still opened. Any moment I thought he was going to blurt something which will just start a 3rd world war.
If you could find an arrogant, pedantic full of himself physician in this day and age, show me and I will show you worse. He is the pinnacle.
What a morning, and all I wanted to do was to crash in my bed.
All this walk over to me, no you walk over to me business, what was that all about? Bad case of egos banging into each other on a one way street? Arkhhh…sort your man ego out arkhhhhhhhh arkhhhhhhhhhh zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..on call again tomorrow.
