All these stories are borrowed (& cleaned up, which is my contribution) from the forums over at studentdoctor.net. They’re just too good to pass up…

1) Never, ever leave flashlights, beer bottles or any other long, circular object on the floor because someday you will fall on it… and it will somehow impale its way up your rectum.

2) Always do woodwork with your skillsaw before using meth.

3) White latex paint, despite being luxuriously thick and creamy, does not coat your stomach and provide relief like pepto bismol does.

4) If you have taken 7 home pregnancy tests, and they’re all positive, when you come into the emergency department… chances are our test will come back positive too.

5) If you are given a prescription for narcotics, at least have the courtesy of leaving the lobby before you try to sell the pillz.

6) Drinking diluted Pine Sol with 5 friends is not a good way to get drunk.

7) When attempting self-circumcision, do not use dry ice to numb the area. As a corollary, when the dry ice sticks to your parts, do not attempt to remove it with boiling water.

8) When stealing a prescription pad, please fill it out correctly before turning it into the pharmacy. They know something’s up when you write for “1.2 pounds of morfeen x 1000 refills”

9) Carefully weigh your options before inserting a toilet brush wrapped in duct tape and saran wrap into your rectum and breaking off the handle. There are better ways to spend your Saturday afternoon.

10) When your 15 year old daughter gives birth to a bleating, underweight infant 30 minutes after presenting with “gas pain”, try not to run around the ED loudly proclaiming, “I don’t know what y’all did or who that baby is, but my lil’ girl warn’t pregnant when she come in here!”

I’m sorry this post has been so late in coming. I really haven’t had the time to post, which sucks. I’ve learned so much in the past few weeks and I can’t even write about it.

Tomorrow is my last day of Trauma Surgery. I’m actually going to miss it, believe it or not. The hours have been hell (4AM-6PM or later, every day, including weekends), but it has been ridiculously awesome along the way.

Yesterday my attending slapped the electrocautery device in my hand with a grin on his face and said in his thick accent “lets see what thees guy can doo with thees thing”. With that I started cutting necrotic tissue off with abandon. It was awesome. Then 20 minutes later I got to suture the skin graft in place†. I felt like I was actually performing surgery - which in a way, I was.

I love surgery. It’s totally fun, and the surgeons themselves - for the most part - are fun people. What’s killing me is that the life of a surgeon is literally as bad as it gets. 2 of my interns are married and don’t see their wife and kids for days at a time.

Any advice from my readers? I’ve been told multiple times that “if you want it badly enough, you can deal with the hours” … but I’m not sure I can.

I’ve been thinking subspecialty (ENT, urology, ortho) might be a good compromise of physically doing surgery, but not having to deal with the hell that is a General Surgery rotation. Input?

† “help” may have been a good word to interject… it took me about twice as long to throw my sutures as it did the resident. Still and all, I can point to about a quarter of her skin graft and say “I did that!”

I’ve seen kids with their legs chewed up by motorcycle crashes. I’ve seen women shitting their guts out from C. Difficile infection. I’ve held the hand of a 15 year old coke addict while I ripped a tube out of his chest. I even sewed a man’s arm that was sliced in half by barbed wire.

But I’ve never been so unsettled as I was today.

A lady came in to the Emergency Department, a Code White. As part of the trauma service, I was called down. She had multiple drugs on board, and was flailing around like a madwoman.

In order to safely intubate her, she was given Succinylcholine and some Versed. Briefly, Succinylcholine is a paralyzing agent that prevents people from moving (lets us stick tubes down their throat to help them breathe) and Versed knocks them out so they can’t tell that a tube has been shoved down their windpipe.

I was excited because I got to bag-mask her (i.e. breathe for her, since she had been completely paralyzed)… but as we wheeled her over to where she was getting her CAT scan, I started to notice that she was drooling from her mouth, nose, and eyes. On top of that, her hand was twitching.

As we rounded the corners to Radiology her movements became much more pronounced. Her hands started moving up as if to rip the tube out.

I’ll spare you the gory details. For the next 20 minutes or so, the nurses attempted to restrain her while she jerked around, arms and legs straining to rip off each and every tube out of her body. The nurses - and the doctors - were convinced that it was merely a rudimentary brainstem response. Intellectually, I agree, but I can’t shake the feeling that she was awake and unable to speak or defend herself, while suffocated and drooled into every orifice possible.

I don’t get wierded out easily. But her lying there, unable to scream, was just too much for me.

While I’m at it, here was the post I typed up immediately after getting off trauma call the first night.

Holy crap was that cool. I’m tired. Naptime!

I know we all love the TSA, but when you start getting bottles of water confiscated left and right - and then find out they let a bomb on the plane 5 times out of 7 - you just gotta wonder… what’s the point?

Anyhow, if you’re all wondering why I haven’t been posting, it’s because I don’t have much to say. My night on trauma call was somewhat uneventful (I did an ABG for the first time, irrigated a couple wounds, and saw a guy with his penis half-cut off†), but the rest of the week has been pretty boring. We’re trying a new “clinic” program out, where we rotate through multiple specialties (so far: urology, neurosurgery, general surgery).

Unfortunately since I’m not part of a “team” - more on how that all works later - I don’t actually have any responsibility. Great for free time, poor for sense of accomplishment.

On the other hand, I’ll be on the trauma surgery team starting Saturday morning, 7AM, and then the fun just don’t stop.

†yawn. Transected penises are soooo blasé.