Just As Predicted

I knew it wouldn't be a "quiet" night.  There's a reason for superstitions, they come true sometimes.  I thought about this at 3:30 in the morning when we finally got our 3 new patients tucked in for the night after:  placing a central line in one because they were hypotensive requiring pressors and fluid support, intubating another because despite COPD and probable lung CA they continued to smoke ("but I'm down to 10 a day from a pack a day for the last 30 years"), almost needing to intubate a third patient who suddenly started having problems breathing, and admitting the third patient who decided to wait 2 days before coming in with a pretty significant heart attack.  Oh, yeah, another ethics dilemma:  should we be giving organs to people who don't follow up with their physicians, return to doing drugs, albeit not IV drugs ("a little marijuana now and then won't hurt"), and who don't take care of themselves in general?

Anyway, once the commotion seemed to settle down, I turned to my senior and told him it was his fault for using the "Q" word yesterday.  Suddenly, all four ICU nurses turned to him and said, "You used the "Q" word?!?!?!"  He looked around at them and said, "How come everyone knows about this except for me?"  I might have stated the obvious which is that he's a foreign medical grad who after 3 years of training in the US has not absorbed some of the nuances of our language, but I didn't.  I went off to my happy corner of the hospital to catch 2 hours' nap on a comfy recliner before having to come back to the unit to pre-round on my patients.

A nice longer nap when I got home, some pajama time with the kitties, and I am now preparing for a short round session (hopefully) in the morning followed by my 24 hours off on Monday.  Too much to do...!!
CCU Countdown:
Days left until the end of the rotation: 15
Actual number of days I will be working during that time: 13
Days left until painful attending returns:  8
Number of days until my next 24 hours off: 1
Number of short call shifts remaining:  2
Number of long call shifts remaining: 1
Number of patients: 3
Number of evil Internal Medicine residents: 3
Number of evil CCU nurses*:  3 (*names have been changed to protect the innocent, mainly me... :D)

Tags: ccu, BGH, superstitions, foreign medical graduates