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I went in to the Emergency Room at about 10:30 pm. Horrible abdominal pain for the last two days and unable to eat anything, super nauseous and puking every time eating was attempted. After waiting around for what seemed like hours, the doctor enters with a PA (physician assistant) student, introduces herself and the student, then beats a hasty retreat. The student then proceeds to look panicked.
"Oh great," I think to myself, "a student -- probably no idea what he's doing." The blonde haired, blue eyed, roughly 6 foot PA student looks like he's maybe 22 years old and hasn't the faintest idea of what's going on. As he approaches the bed and asks permission to ask some questions, he is noticeably upset at being abandoned by his attending physician in this room with a patient in obvious pain.
His sentences come out in a halting, albeit kind manner.
"So what brings you to the ER tonight?" he begins. On the bed, clutching the abdomen. Crying.
"Do you have your eyes open?! What do you THINK??" I ask myself, but restrain any outburst so as not to appear desperate. Eventually, after seemingly pointless questions that appear to lack all pretense of approaching a diagnosis, the PA student gets to the physical exam portion of my ER visit.
He explains what he's going to do, and vocalizes that he can't actually say his findings until he reports to his preceptor, the doctor from earlier, who'd been in the room a grand total of maybe 7 seconds. Stethoscope out, the PA student (whose name is Rob -- he'd introduced himself halfway through the questioning while looking embarrassed for not having mentioned it earlier) listens. Heart, lungs, abdomen. In order to get a good listen, sitting up was required. Waves of excruciating pain. Then he proceeds to poke around. Fingers sink in probably 2 inches. Intractable pain and the tears start up again. I'm pretty sure an f-bomb was dropped at some point. Oops.
Rob leaves the room and presumably goes to chat with the doctor -- I'm not really sure what happened in the mean time because it was a bit of a haze. Eventually the doctor and PA student come back into the room and explain their current thought process. A couple things stand out.
Appendicitis.
Emergency surgery to take it out.
The operating room was getting ready right now, so anesthesiology wanted to have a chat. All the rest is a blur as we head down the hall towards the operating suite. Anesthesiology evidently decided it was OK to start, so with the doctor's acknowledgement we're in the operating room and there's a mask coming down. The anesthesiologist says "take a few breaths hon, then you'll wake up in a lot less pain!"
With that, I turn to my attending physician, and let her know that's one hell of a way to start my rotation by abandoning me with a patient whom I know nothing about, and go scrub in for my first surgical case.
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Hope you enjoyed the read! I hope to follow up this blog with other interesting things I see on rotations, perhaps not in quite so dramatic a writing style as this one. I may pull a few others from memory, though; surgery is my fourth rotation out of nine total.
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I had surgery to right my bones in a broken arm once.
Waking up after the surgery was one of the most surreal things I have experienced.
I woke up to a phillipino nurse and brilliant sunlight coming through the window and everything looked so cool.
I think she tried talking to me but I don't really remember anything that I might have said.
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Sucks man, I had appendicitis and mine burst and it got taken out. I can imagine the pain you were in.
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So you were the PA right? If you were then LOL that was a great twist. If not then sorry about the LOL in the sentence before this one.
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I'm just glad your safe man. :D
I dunno why but I get all emotional and shit from TL members with health issues. 
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So if I read it right, you're Rob.
Sounds fun, this is something I have to look forward to. The only part I'm terrified of is OB, as every sane person should be. Oh... the horror stories of OB rotations...
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He is Rob haha
congratulations man, the world needs more good doctors, I hope you become one ^^
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Yup, that's correct, I'm Rob. ^^
Actually wasn't as frightened as I made myself out to be. I've already done my emergency medicine rotation, so it's not like this was anything 100% new to me, I was just doing the surgical consult instead of the initial visit. And it happened the very first night of my rotation, after meeting my preceptor for a grand total of 3 minutes after the hospital orientation and scrub course.
On January 15 2012 10:57 seiferoth10 wrote:
So if I read it right, you're Rob.
Sounds fun, this is something I have to look forward to. The only part I'm terrified of is OB, as every sane person should be. Oh... the horror stories of OB rotations...
Haven't done it myself yet (April/May) but oh god, the stories. One of my friends had to do his OB rotation in an STD clinic...
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ive had multiple surgeries but it wasnt the surgery that was the worst part it was the prescription pain pills they prescribed me that almost costed me my life i was an addict for 2 years. please dont take them if you dont need them
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having surgery is quite the scary thing though. hope you are okay! i would also like to bring your attention to this article if you haven't already. the same situation with a.. well a really cool twist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov
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On January 15 2012 11:26 hehe wrote:
ive had multiple surgeries but it wasnt the surgery that was the worst part it was the prescription pain pills they prescribed me that almost costed me my life i was an addict for 2 years. please dont take them if you dont need them
Luckily, I wasn't the one going under the knife, I was assisting the surgeon with the procedure, so no pain pills for me.
That said, I truly do know what you went through, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. My last rotation was at a rehab facility for drugs and alcohol, and I witnessed first-hand what is experienced in situations like that.
It sounds like you're clean now, and I'm incredibly happy for you.
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On January 15 2012 11:38 JMave wrote:having surgery is quite the scary thing though. hope you are okay! i would also like to bring your attention to this article if you haven't already. the same situation with a.. well a really cool twist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov
Holy shit!
Even with self-surgery being the only option, I don't know that I'd have the balls to do that on myself, and have to work via a mirror on top of it being yourself.... wow...
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On January 15 2012 11:20 Stereotype wrote:Yup, that's correct, I'm Rob. ^^ Actually wasn't as frightened as I made myself out to be. I've already done my emergency medicine rotation, so it's not like this was anything 100% new to me, I was just doing the surgical consult instead of the initial visit. And it happened the very first night of my rotation, after meeting my preceptor for a grand total of 3 minutes after the hospital orientation and scrub course. Show nested quote +On January 15 2012 10:57 seiferoth10 wrote:
So if I read it right, you're Rob.
Sounds fun, this is something I have to look forward to. The only part I'm terrified of is OB, as every sane person should be. Oh... the horror stories of OB rotations... Haven't done it myself yet (April/May) but oh god, the stories. One of my friends had to do his OB rotation in an STD clinic...
Oh good lord...
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I've only ever had surgery to take out my wisdom teeth. I came out of the anesthesia with a semi-boner, my family all around me.
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Appendicitis was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt. And they had me sitting in the ER waiting for about 2 hours. Not fun. And then they gave me morphine. Almost made up for the rest of it.
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EPT
