ICU madness

Wow, I have strayed from the pleasantries of the HIV clinic.

 

"I've had it up to here," I said, with my hand above my head. I was standing in the middle of the ICU talking to Linda, one of the pediatric ICU consultants who was looking at xrays. She's been one of the few persons who seems to be keen to improve standards, and when she hears about events which need to be addressed, she addresses them. (I'm keeping this vague for professional/legal reasons, but ask me in person and I'll gladly tell you stories).

"What do you need"

"Well, 2 milligrams of midazolam IV, now would be helpful." [midazolam, a sibling drug of valium]
"For who?"
"Me!"

 

It was just that kind of day--today and yesterday. Half the residents are new. We're short staffed on the resident end. We have some really, really sick patients. (I know that sounds slightly ridiculous, I mean it is called the Intensive Care Unit so one would expect that the patients would be sick, but on the spectrum of sick, we're at the extreme level). Our ICU team today got the major shaft of covering all the 5 admissions that I did yesterday, plus the 5 sickest patients in the ICU... And in the midst of this morning, I decided I no longer was concerned about making friends with the ICU staff. My competence has been proven to my colleagues, and especially to the consultants/attendings, and I no longer give a fuck if the "nurses" and I do not strike up a friendly relationship. Enough said in the blogosphere on this issue. Argh!

 

It doesn't help that I made a schedule trade because I had a call next week which conflicted with other plans, and so to fix the schedule, did a trade which means that I now have 4 calls this week, and one of those calls will be this Friday night, and we'll be short one resident...

 

But I see the light at the end of the tunnel. My ICU time in limited. I've been in the ICU for over a month now, and feel fairly comfortable operating in this environment. And, at least when I'm on call the next few nights, I get to cover kids. And Linda is the attending on all week.

 

So, I'm hunkering down for a long week.... and to boot, am on for 2 weeks in a row.

 

Thank you, the whining is over.