Feeble (but photographic) attempts to show this blog isn't all about work, I give you The Backyard in Summer. Or Spring, or whatever season this is supposed to be.
Monday, May 19, 2008
k.c. and the sunshine band
Feeble (but photographic) attempts to show this blog isn't all about work, I give you The Backyard in Summer. Or Spring, or whatever season this is supposed to be.
Monday, May 12, 2008
lost
I've been absent for a little while on El-Bloggo, not that anyone's been missing my semi-daily dose of bitching.
Mostly, I've been wrestling with work, catching on to the whys and wherefores of intensive care, and gettin' toughened up to death (and medical situations arguably worse than death).
Last week, for instance, I had an hour long code on a patient who everybody was pretty sure wasn't gonna make it, and she didn't. A few hours later, I admitted a lovably crusty old guy status post AAA repair. It was like clockwork, or a factory, or whatever. Clock in, code patient, put patient in vinyl bag, send patient to morgue, admit new patient, clock out. I didn't have nightmares or suffer from caregiver's fatigue over the code. She was sick, we did our best, she died.
Back in February, when this ICU gig started, a code, even one where we knew the patient was pretty much gonna stay dead, would have sent me straight into "What am I doing here?!" crisis.
Now I'm finding I'm getting oddly used to crisis, suffering and death. Granted, there are moments and shifts that really do bother me--for instance, taking care of brain dead patients as a result of homicide still freaks me out--but, in general, it's started to feel much more routine.
I feel on some level continued desensitization along these lines probably is not good for me as a person, but it's necessary to compartmentalize your reaction to the suffering of others if you have to work around/with it on a daily basis. Then again, I was watching an interview of a serial killer who talked about his ability to murder without conscience was predicated on being able to successfully compartmentalize his feelings, so I'm not quite sure what all my ability to emotionally check out more often than not says about humanity and health care.
Mostly, I've been wrestling with work, catching on to the whys and wherefores of intensive care, and gettin' toughened up to death (and medical situations arguably worse than death).
Last week, for instance, I had an hour long code on a patient who everybody was pretty sure wasn't gonna make it, and she didn't. A few hours later, I admitted a lovably crusty old guy status post AAA repair. It was like clockwork, or a factory, or whatever. Clock in, code patient, put patient in vinyl bag, send patient to morgue, admit new patient, clock out. I didn't have nightmares or suffer from caregiver's fatigue over the code. She was sick, we did our best, she died.
Back in February, when this ICU gig started, a code, even one where we knew the patient was pretty much gonna stay dead, would have sent me straight into "What am I doing here?!" crisis.
Now I'm finding I'm getting oddly used to crisis, suffering and death. Granted, there are moments and shifts that really do bother me--for instance, taking care of brain dead patients as a result of homicide still freaks me out--but, in general, it's started to feel much more routine.
I feel on some level continued desensitization along these lines probably is not good for me as a person, but it's necessary to compartmentalize your reaction to the suffering of others if you have to work around/with it on a daily basis. Then again, I was watching an interview of a serial killer who talked about his ability to murder without conscience was predicated on being able to successfully compartmentalize his feelings, so I'm not quite sure what all my ability to emotionally check out more often than not says about humanity and health care.
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